mise it makes us, for the future, and every day taking away and annulling the joys of the past. Let us comfort one another, and if possible, study to add as much more friendship to each other, as death has deprived us of in him: I promise you more and more of mine, which will be the way to deserve more and more of yours.

I purposely avoid saying more. The subject is beyond writing upon, beyond cure or ease by reason or reflection, beyond all but one thought, that it is the will of God.

So will the death of my mother be! which now I tremble at, now resign to, now bring close to me, now set farther off: every day alters, turns me about, and confuses my whole frame of mind. Her dangerous distemper is again returned, her fever coming onward again, though less in pain; for which last however I thank God.

I am unfeignedly tired of the world, and receive nothing to be called a Pleasure in it, equivalent to countervail either the death of one I have so long lived with, or of one I have so long lived for. I have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort; the last we usually think of, though the only one we should in wisdom depend upon, in such a disappointing place as this. I sit in her room, and she is always present before me, but when I sleep. I wonder I am so well: I have shed many tears, but now I weep at nothing. I would above all things see you, and think it would comfort you to see me so equal-tempered and so quiet. But pray dine here; you may, and she know nothing of it, for

she dozes much, and we tell her of no earthly thing, lest it run in her mind, which often trifles have done. If Mr. Bethel had time, I wish he were your companion hither. Be as much as you can with each other: be assured I love you both, and be farther assured, that friendship will increase as I live on.

"SIR,

LETTER XXIX.

TR MR. CHRISTOPHER PITT.

Twitenham, near Hampton Court,
July 23, 1726.

"I RECEIVED a Letter from you with satisfaction, having long been desirous of any occasion of testifying my regard for you, and particularly of acknowedging the pleasure your version of Vida's Poetick had afforded me. I had it not indeed from your Bookseller, but read it with eagerness, & think it both a correct, and a spirited translation. I am pleased to have been (as you tell me) y occasion of y' undertaking that work: that is some sort of merit ; & if I have any in me, it really consists in an earnest desire to promote & produce, as far as I can, that of others. But as to my being y publisher, or any way concern'd in reviewing or recommending of Lintot's Miscellany, it is what I never did in my life; tho' He (like y rest of his Tribe) make a very free use of my name. He has often reprinted my things, & so scurvily, that finding he was doing so again, I

corrected ye sheets as far as they went, of my own only: And being told by him, y' he had 2 or 3 copies of yours (wch you had formerly sent me (as he said) thro' his hands), I obliged him to write for y' con

This was all: y'

sent, before he made use of 'em. second book he has just now delivered to me, y Inscription of wch to myself I will take care he shall leave out, & either return y rest of your verses to him, or not, as you shall like best. I am obliged to you, S', for expressing a much higher opinion of me than I know I deserve. The freedom with wch you write is yet what obliges and pleases me more; & it is with sincerity that I say, I wd rather be thought by every ingenious man in y' world, his servant, than

his rival.

"I am very much yours,

"A. POPE."

N. B. In a Letter from Mr. Spence to Mr. Pitt, dated Twickenham August 2, 1728, is the following Postscript:

"Sir, I take this opportunity of assuring you, you have at the place from whence this Letter is dated, a friend, and servant,

"A. POPE"."

Our Author's mode of spelling is minutely copied in this Letter.

LETTER XXX.

TO HUGH BETHEL, ESQ.

July 12, 1723.

I ASSURE you unfeignedly any memorial of your good-nature and friendliness is most welcome to me, who knew those tenders of affection from you are not like the common traffic of compliments and professions, which most people only give that they may receive; and is at best a commerce of Vanity, if not of Falsehood. I am happy in not immediately wanting the sort of good offices you offer; but if I did want them, I should think myself unhappy in receiving them at your hands: this really is some compliment, for I would rather most men did me a small injury, than a kindness. I know your humanity, and, allow me to say, I love and value you for it: 'tis a much better ground of love and value, than all the qualities I see the world so fond of: they generally, admire in the wrong place, and generally most admire the things they don't comprehend, or the things they can never be the better for. Very few can receive pleasure or advantage from wit which they seldom taste, or learning which they seldom understand, much less from the quality, high birth, or shining circumstances, of those to whom they profess esteem, and who will always remember how much they are their inferiors. But humanity and sociable virtues are what every creature wants every day, and still wants more the longer he lives, and most the very

moment he dies.

It is travelling either in a ditch or on a terrace; we should walk in the common way, where others are continually passing on the same level, to make the journey of life supportable by bearing one another company in the same circumstances.--Let me know how I may convey over the Odysseys for your amusement in your journey, that you may compare your own travels with those of Ulysses I am sure yours are undertaken upon a more disinterested, and therefore a more heroic motive. Far be the omen from you, of returning as he did, alone, without saving a friend.

6

There is lately printed a book wherein all human virtue is reduced to one test, that of Truth, and branched out in every instance of our duty to God and man. If you have not seen it, you must, and I will send it together with the Odyssey. The very women read it, and pretend to be charmed with that beauty which they generally think the least of. They make as much-ado about truth, since this book appeared, as they did about health when Dr. Cheyne's came out; and will doubtless be as constant in the pursuit of one, as of the other. Adieu.

Mr. Wollaston's excellent book of the Religion of Nature delineated. The Queen was fond of it, and that made the reading of it, and the talking of it, fashionable. W.

Pope also read it attentively; as appears by many passages taken from it, in the Essay on Man.