'fhall be to hear from you; which next to seeing 'you, would be the greateft fatisfaction to

Your most affectionate friend and

ΤΗ

HOUGH my proportion of this epiftle fhould be but a sketch in miniature, yet I ⚫ take up half this page, having paid my club with 'the good company both for our dinner of chops and for this paper. The poets will give you lively descriptions in their way; I fhall only 'acquaint you with that, which is directly my province. I have juft fet the laft hand to a couplet,

for fo I may call two nymphs in one piece. They are Pope's favourites, and though few, you will 'guefs must have coft me more pains than any nymphs can be worth. He has been fo unreafonable to expect that I should have made them as < beautiful upon canvas as he has done upon paper. If this fame Mr. P fhould omit to write for the dear Frogs, and the Pervigilium, I must intreat you not to let me languifh for them, as I have done ever fince they crofs'd the feas; Remember by what neglects, &c. we mifs'd ⚫ them when we loft you, and therefore I have not b 2 ' yet

yet forgiven any of thofe triflers that let them escape and run those hazards. I am going on at the old rate, and want you and the Dean prodi'giously, and am in hopes of making you a visit this fummer, and of hearing from you both now you are together. Fortefcue, I am fure, will be concerned that he is not in Cornhill, to fet his hand to these prefents, not only as a witnefs, but

८

as a

Serviteur tres humble

"C. JERVA S.

It is fo great an honour to a poor Scotchman to be remembered at this time a day, especially by < an inhabitant of the Glacialis Ierne, that I take it very thankfully, and have with my good friends, remembered you at our table in the chop-house in Exchange-Alley. There wanted nothing to compleat our happiness but your company and our dear friend the Dean's. I am fure the ' whole entertainment would have been to his relish.

.

Gay has got fo much money by his art of walking the streets, that he is ready to fet up his equipage: he is just going to the Bank to negociate • fome exchange bills. Mr. Pope delays his fecond volume of his Homer till the martial fpirit of the rebels is quite quelled, it being judged that the • first part did fome harm that way. Our love a

gain and again to the dear Dean, fuimus Torys? I can fay no more.

'ARBUTHNOT.'

• When a man is conscious that he does no good himself, the next thing is to cause others to do • fome. I may claim fome merit this way, in haftening this teftimonial from your friends above'writing their love to you indeed wants no fpur, their ink wants no pen, their pen wants no hand, 6 their hand wants no heart, and so forth, (after 'the manner of Rabelais; which is betwixt some meaning and no meaning;) and yet it may be 'faid, when present thought and opportunity is 'wanting, their pens want ink, their hands want 'pens, their hearts want hands, &c. till time, place and conveniency concur to fet them a writing, as at present, a fociable meeting, a good dinner, warm fire, and an easy situation do, to • the joint labour and pleasure of this epistle. - Wherein if I fhould fay nothing I fhould fay much, (much being included in my love) though my love be such, that if I should say much, I 'fhould yet fay nothing, it being (as Cowley fays) equally impoffible either to conceal or to express it.

If I were to tell you the thing I wish above all 'things, it is to see you again; the next is to fee here your treatise of Zoilus, with the Batrachomuomachia, and the Pervigilium Veneris, both which

poems are mafterpieces in feveral kinds; and I queftion not the profe is as excellent in its fort, as 'the Effay on Homer. Nothing can be more glo'rious to that great author, than that the fame hand that raised his beft ftatue, and decked it with its old laurels, fhould alfo hang up the fcare-crow of his miferable critick, and gibbet up the carcafe of Zoilus, to the terror of the witlings of pofterity. More, and much more, upon this and a thousand other fubjects, will be the matter of my next letter, wherein I must open all the friend to you. At this time I must be content

' with telling you, I am faithfully your most affectionate and

Humble fervant,

A. POPE.'

If we regard this letter with a critical eye, we fhall find it indifferent enough, if we confider it as mere effufion of friendship, in which every writer contended in affection, it will appear much to the honour of thofe who wrote it. To be mindful of an absent friend in the hours of mirth and feasting, when his company is leaft wanted, fhews no flight degree of fincerity. Yet probably there was ftill another motive for writing thus to him in conjunction. The above-named, together with Swift and Parnell, had fometime before formed them

4

felves into a fociety called the Scribblerus Club, and I fhould fuppofe they commemorated him thus, as being an abfent member.

It is paft a doubt that they wrote many things in conjunction, and Gay ufually held the pen. And yet I don't remember any productions which were the joint effort of this fociety as doing it honour. There is fomething feeble and queint in all their attempts, as if company, repressed thought, and genius wanted folitude for its boldeft and happiest exertions. Of those productions in which Parnell had a principal share, that of the origin of the fciences from the monkies in Ethiopia, is particularly mentioned by Pope himself, in fome manufcript anecdotes which he left behind him. The life of Homer alfo prefixed to the tranflation of the Iliad, is written by Parnell and corrected by Pope; and as that great poet affures us in the fame place, this correction was not effected without great labour. It is fill fiff, fays he, and was written still stiffer, as it is, I verily think, it coft me more pains in the correcting than the writing it would have done. All this may be easily credited; for every thing of Parnell's that has appeared in profe is written in a very aukward inelegant manner. It is true, his productions teem with imagination, and fhew great learning, but they want that eafe and fweetness for which his poetry is fo much admired, and the language is also most fhamefully incorrect. Yet, tho' all this must be allowed, Pope fhould have taken care not to leave his errors upon record against

him,