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Thus vanish Sceptres, Coronets, and Balls,
And leave you in lone Woods or empty Walls.

So when your Slave, at fome dear, idle Time,
(Not plagu'd with Headachs, or the Want of Rhime)
Stands in the Streets, abstracted from the Crew,
And while he seems to ftudy, thinks of you:
Juft when his Fancy points your fprightly Eyes,
Or fees the Blush of Partheniffa rife,

Gay pats my Shoulder, and you vanish quite ;
Streets, Chairs, and Coxcombs, rush upon my Sight;
Vext to be still in Town, I knit my Brow,
Look fow'r, and hum a Song--as you may now.

Her Return to London was very great Matter of Confolation to Mr. Pope, he now began publickly to avow a lafting Love and Friendship for her, and writing to his very dear and valuable * Correspondent, October 21, 1721, he says,

Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you; let Mrs. Blount know that she is in the Lift of my Memento Domine's Famulorum Famularumque's, &c.

And in a Letter to her, wrote by the Way as he went to Oxford, fairly protefts, that he loves no Woman but her and prefers her, in a genteel Comparison, to a Dutchess.

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U can't be furpriz'd to find him a dull Correfpondent whom you have known fo long for a dull Companion. And tho' I am pretty fenfible, that if I have any Wit, I may as well write to fhow it, as not; (becaufe any Lady that has once feen me, will naturally afk, what I can fhow that is better?) I'll content myself with giving you as plain a Hiftory of my Pilgrimage, as Purchas himself, or VÓL. II. D

yet

* Mr. Blount.

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as John Bunyan could do of his walking through the Wilderness of the World.

First then I went by Water to Hampton-Court, unattended by all but my own Virtues; which were not of fo modeft a Nature as to keep themselves, or me, conceal'd: For I met the Prince with all his Ladies on Horfeback, coming from Hunting. Mrs. Bellenden and Mrs. Lepell took me into Protection (contrary to the Laws against harbouring Papists) and gave me a Dinner, with fomething I lik'd better, an Opportunity of Converfation with Mrs. Howe.. We all agreed, that the Life of a Maid of Honour, was of all Things the most miferable; and wifh'd that every Woman who envy'd it had a Specimen of it. To eat Weftphalia-Ham in a Morning, ride over Hedges aud Ditches on borrow'd Hacks, come home in the Heat of the Day with a Fever, and, (what. is worse a hundred Times) with a red Mark in the Forehead from an uneafy Hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent Wives for Fox-Hunters, and bear Abundace of ruddy complexion'd Children, As, foon as they can wipe off the Sweat of the Day, they muft fimper an Hour and catch cold, in the Princefs's Apartment; from thence (as Shakespear.. has it) To Dinner, with what Appetite they mayand after that, 'till Midnight, walk, work, or think, which they pleafe? I can eafily believe no LoneHoufe in Wales, with a Mountain and Rookery, is more contemplative than this Court; and as a Proof. of it I need only tell you Mrs. Lepell walk'd alone with me three or four Hours by Moonlight, and we met no Creature of any Quality but the King, who gave Audience to the Vice Chamberlain, all alone, under the Garden Wall.

In fhort, I heard of no Ball, Affembly, BaffetTable, or any Place where two or three were gathered

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gathered together, except Madam Kilmanfegg's, to which I had the Honour to be invited, and the Grace to stay away.

I was heartily tired, and pofted to Bushey Park: There we had an excellent Discourse of Quackery; Dr. Shadwell was mention'd with Honour. Lady A. walk'd a whole Hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the Time I ftay'd, tho' fhe feem'd to be fainting, and had convulfive Motions feveral Times in her Head.

This Day I receiv'd a Letter with certain Advices where Women were to be met with at Oxford. I defy them and all their Works: I love no Meat but Ortolans, and no Women but you: Tho' indeed that's no proper Comparison, but for fat Dutcheffes; for to love you, is as if one fhould wish to eat Angels, or to drink Cherubim Broth.

I arriv'd in the Foreft by Tuesday Noom, and pafs'd the reft of the Day in those Woods where I have so often enjoy'd a Book and a Friend. I made a Hymn as I pafs'd thro', which ended with a Sigh that I will not tell you the Meaning of.

Your Doctor is gone the Way of all his Patients, and was hard put to it how to dispose of an Estate miferably unweildy, and fplendidly unuseful to him. Sir Samuel Garth fays, that for Radcliffe to leave a Library, was as if an Eunuch fhould found a Seraglio. Dr. Shadwell lately told a Lady he wonder'd how she could be alive after him; fhe made Answer she wonder'd at it for two Reasons, becaufe Dr. Radcliffe was dead and because Dr. Shadwell was living. I am, Dear Madam, Your, &c.

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Further, as an Affurance that his Paffion (for now it admits of that Name) was not meerly fix'd on her

as a fine Woman, fpeaking of her Perfon, he takes Care to let her know, at the Conclufion of another of his Letters, that his Thoughts are turn'd quite another Way. There he fays:

The Days of Beauty are as the Days of Greatnefs, and as long as your Eyes make their Sunfhine, all the World are your Adorers: I am one of thofe unambitious People, who will love you forty Years hence, when your Eyes begin to twinkle in a Retirement, for your own Sake, and without the Vanity which every one now will take to be thought,

Dear Madam,

Your most devoted, &c.

While he was at Oxford, where he was us'd with the utmost Civility, and courted from one College to another, he kept conftantly writing to Mrs. Blount, and the beginning to be fenfible of the Sincerity of his Profeffions, and to find a Pleasure in little other Company but his, occafion'd, when they were feparated, a great Intercourfe of Letters, in which, we make no doubt, there were fine Descriptions of the Characters of the People then moft talk'd of; but as thofe Letters wrote to her, and hers to him, were all in her Hands, except a few that have efcap'd long fince by Chance, we cannot promife whether ever they will be produc'd to the Publick, or whether it is poffible, for many of them, if not all, are destroy'd; however, thofe few we have ferve, and are greatly useful in many Respects, and in particular in clearing up that Part of Mr. Pope's Will, which. relates to Mrs Blount; for it might have furpriz'd fome People, to have feen the Bulk of his Fortune, and all his valuable Moveables (except a few Books, and tokens of Friendfhip) left to that Lady, had they

not

not before known of the long Esteem, and loving Friendship fubfifting between them.

Before he left Oxford, he prepar'd her for his coming to Town, by a Letter which speaks of his Arrival there, and the Reception he met with, take it in his own Words:

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WOTHING could have more of that Melancholy which once us'd to please me, than my laft Day's Journey; for after having pafs'd thro' my favourite Woods in the Foreft, with a thousand Reveries of past Pleasures, I rid over hanging Hills, whofe Tops were edg'd with Groves, and whofe Feet water'd with winding Rivers, liftening to the Falls of Cataracts below, and the murmuring of the Winds above: The gloomy Verdure of Stonor fucceeded to thefe; and then the Shades of the Evening oxertook me. The Moon rofe in the clearest Sky I ever faw, by whofe folemn Light I paced on flowly, without Company, or any Interruption, to the Range of my Thoughts. About a Mile before I reach'd Oxford, all the Bells toll'd in different Notes; the Clocks of every College answer'd one another, and founded forth (fome in deeper, fome in a fofter Tone) that it was eleven at Night. All this was no ill Preparation to the Life I have led fince,. among thofe old Walls, memorable Galleries, Stone Portico's, ftudious Walks, and folitary Scenes of the University. I wanted nothing but a black Gown and a Salary, to be as meer a Book-Worm as any there. I conform'd myself to College Hours, was roll'd up in Books, lay in one of the most antient dufky Parts of the Univerfity, and was as dead to the World as any Hermit of the Defart. If any Thing was alive or awake in me, it was a little Vanity, fuch as even thofe good Men us'd to entertain, when the Monks of their own

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