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Order extoll'd their Piety and Abstraction. For I found myself receiv'd with a Sort of Respect, which the idle Part of Mankind, the Learned, pay to their own Species, who are as confiderable here, as the Bufy, the Gay, and the Ambitious are in your World.

Indeed I was treated in fuch a Manner, that I could not but fometimes afk myself in my Mind, what College I was Founder of, or what Library I had built? Methinks I do very ill to return to the World again, to leave the only Place where I make a Figure, and from seeing myself feated with Dignity in the most confpicuous Shelves of a Library, put myfelf into the abject Pofture of lying at a Lady's Feet in St. James's Square.

I am,

Dear Madam, &c.

A. Thoufand Women, notwithstanding the Ungenteelness and Homeliness, nay, almoft Uglinefs of Mr. Pope's Perfon, would have thought themselves happy, in having so much of his Company and Converfation; but very few, if any, could have been capable of being fo agreeable to him, as this Lady: She was of an inquifitive Temper, both as to Learnjug and Politicks; fhe had fomething of a Pleasure in thinking of publick Bufinefs, having been prefent at much political Difcourfe, with Company our Author us'd to keep, which could not be avoided, tho' Politicks was far from being his darling Topick: She was particularly concern'd at the Fall of the late Earl of Oxford, for whom fhe had the greatest Respect and Veneration imaginable, and fuffer'd very much with him, when he had the great Weight of AfAliction to bear, both from princely Power and popular Hatred, nothing comforted her but the dauntless Conduct

Conduct he fhew'd under it, tho' he then labour'd with the racking Pains of the Stone, one of which, a very confiderable one, he at that Time voided.

Mrs. Blount had always a very gallant Spirit, fhe would often wish to fee fuch Sights as Armies, Encampments, and Standards waving over her Brother's Grounds and Fields, and would talk of Battles and Bloodfhed as familiar as if fhe was no Ways afraid of them, which fome other Ladies us'd to call Barbarity, and wonder how he could talk, or even think of fuch cruel Things without Tears, and aking Heart; ob (fhe'd make Answer) it would be a glorious Sight; fo many fine Officers, fine Gentlemen, fine Soldiers, fine Colours, fine Horfes, 'twould be prodigious Pleafure to fee.

Our Author, in the Beginning of the Reign of the late King, knowing her Difpofition, gives her Notice to the Country where fhe was, of a Sight going to be, that muft certainly please her. His Letter runs thus:

T

HOSE Eyes that care not how much Mischief is done, or how great Slaughter committed, fo they have but a fine Show; thofe very female Eyes will be infinitely delighted with the Camp which is fpeedily to be form'd in Hyde-Park. The Tents are carried thither this Morning, new Regiments, with new Cloaths and Furniture (far exceeding the late Cloth and Linnen defign'd by his Grace for the Soldiery.) The Sight of fo many gallant Fellows, with all the Pomp and Glare of War yet undeform'd by Battle, thofe Scenes which England has for many Years only beheld on Stages, may poffibly invite your Curiofity to this Place.

Mrs. expects the Pretender at her Lodgings by Saturday fe'nnight. She has bought a Picture of Madam

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Madam Maintenon to fet her Features by, againft that Time. Three Priefts of your Acquaintance are very pofitive, by her Intereft, to be his Father Confeffor.

By our laft Accounts from Duke Street, Westminfter, the Converfion of T. G. Efq; is reported in a Manner fomewhat more particular: That upon the Seizure of his Flanders Mares, he feem'd more than ordinarily disturb'd for fome Hours, fent for his Ghoftly Father, and refolv'd to bear his Lofs like a Chriftian; till about the Hours of feven or eight the Coaches and Horfes of feveral of the Nobility paffing by his Window towards Hyde Park, he could no longer endure the Disappointment, but inftantly went out, took the Oath of Abjuration, and recover'd his dear Horfes which carried him in Triumph to the Ring. The poor diftrefs'd Roman Catholicks, now unhorfs'd and uncharioted, cry out with the Pfalmift, Some in Chariots and fome on Horfes, but we will invocate the Name of the Lord.

I am,

Dear Madam, &c.

You will understand by the latter Part of this Letter, that she is a Papift, which still made her more valuable in the Eyes of Mr. Pope; her whole Family was efteem'd by him, and that Efteem was reciprocal, he interested himself now more and more with it, and little was done without first advising with him, yet it (i. e. her Family) was unhappily mention'd in the imprudent Affair at Prefton, tho' Mr. Pope had counfell'd fo as to avoid it, and at leaft thought it moft proper to wait a while; what was done is no Secret to the World, the Rebels were defeated, the Party among themselves difunited, there wanted Money and Difcretion, and every Thing, but Zeal in a few Defperadoes,

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who draw'd in the Reft with falfe Counfels, falfe Affurances, falfe Promises, and falfe Performances; there followed Imprisonment, Attainders, Executions of Gentry and Nobility, voluntary Banishments, the prefent Royal Family being more firmly establish'd than ever.

It was certainly an Infatuation, to think that the Body of the People would be brought to dethrone a Proteftant King, in Favour of a Papift, who, but two Reigns before, had invited the Prince of Orange, a Prince who had no hereditary Right to the Crown, to come from Holland, and deliver them from that Papift King, James the Second, of inglorious Memory; I fay this very People, who had elected the Prince of Orange, and after the Death of Queen Anne, fix'd the Succeffion in the House of Hanover, not as being Hereditary Heirs, but Proteftants, there being at that Time several Pretenders before the Houfe of Brunfwick, only being as Papifts incapable of Ruling, according to our prefent good and wholfome Laws, this Proteftant People of Great Britain, &c. it was Folly to imagine, that they should alter fo madly for a total Change, lofe all Security for the publick Debt, and pay those enormous ones contracted with foreign popifh Courts, and the Pope's Court, by the Pretender.

Their imaginary Notion of finding all the Papists here in his Intereft, was quite groundless; there were, and are, to our certain Knowledge, many Families, who never wish to see the Pretender King of these Imperial Realms, and that would refift him with their Fortunes and Lives, and who have Freedom in themselves all that is neceffary to take the Oaths of Abjuration of the Pretender and faithful Allegiance to the King, without any mental Refervation; but they cannot (it being a Contradiction) deny the Supremacy

premacy and Infallibility of the Pope: This to a Papift is impoffible with Christian Verity and without Perjury to do. But fome there are among Papifts, who wish there was a Teft for the present King and Abjuration for the Pretender separate from the other, and that would fairly diftinguish, that all the Nonjurors to the Oath of Allegiance and Abjuration were those in his Intereft, and the Nonjurors to the Oath of Supremacy only were Papifts, in the Intereft of the present King George and his Royal Family.

After the Defeat at Preston Mr. Pope, very much concern'd not at the Succefs of the King's Forces and Counfels, but at the Distress of his fo very dear Friend, writes a Letter of Comfort and Condoleance dated March 20, 1715-16.

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Dear Sir,

Find that a real Concern is not only a Hindrance to fpeaking, but to writing too: The more Time we give ourselves to think over one's own, or a Friend's Unhappiness, the more unable we grow to exprefs the Grief that proceeds from it. It is as natural to delay a Letter at fuch a Seafon as this, as to retard a melancholy Visit to a Perfon one cannot relieve. One is afhamed in that Circumftance, to pretend to entertain People with trifling infignificant Affectations of Sorrow on the one Hand, or unfeafonable and forced Gaieties on the other. 'Tis a Kind of Profanation of Things facred, to treat fo folemn a Matter as a generous voluntary Suffering, with Compliments on Heroick Gallantries. Such a Mind as your's has no Need of being spirited up into Honour, or, like a weak Woman, praised into an Opinion of its own Virtue. 'Tis enough to do and fuffer what we ought; and Men fhould know, that

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