dirt it was mixed with, I am sorry, it seemed not as reasonable, that you should pardon me for returning your compliment, with more, and opener, praise, mixed with less of that dirtiness, which we have, both, the good taste to complain of.

The Caveat, Sir, was mine. It would have been ridiculous to suppose you ignorant of it: I cannot think, you need be told, that it meant you no harm ; -and it had scorned to appear under the borrowed name it carries, but that the whimsical turn of the preface, would have made my own a contradiction. —I promise you, however, that for the future, I will publish nothing, without my name, that concerns you, or your writings. I have now, almost finished, An Essay on Propriety, and Impropriety, in Design, Thought, and Expression, illustrated, by Examples, in both Kinds, from the Writings of Mr. Pope; and, to convince you how much more pleasure it gives me, to distinguish your lights, than your shades ;— and that I am as willing as I ought to be, to see, and acknowledge my faults; I am ready, with all my heart, to let it run thus, if it would, otherwise, create the least pain in you :-An Essay on Propriety, and Impropriety, etc. illustrated by Examples, of the first, from the Writings of Mr. Pope, and of the last, from those of the Author.

I am sorry to hear you say, you never thought any great matters of your poetry.-It is, in my opinion, the characteristic you are to hope your distinction from: to be honest is the duty of every plain man! Nor, since the soul of poetry is sentiment, can a great poet want morality. But your honesty you possess in

common with a million, who will never be remembered; whereas your poetry is a peculiar, that will make it impossible, you should be forgotten.

If you had not been in the spleen, when you wrote me this letter, I persuade myself, you would not, immediately after censuring the pride of writers, have asserted, that you, certainly, know your moral life, above that of most of the wits of these days: at any other time, you would have remembered that humility is a moral virtue. It was a bold declaration; and the certainty with which you know it, stands in need of a better acquaintance than you seem to have had with the tribe; since you tell me, in the same letter, that many of their names were unknown to you. Neither would it appear, to your own reason, at a cooler juncture, over-consistent with the morality you are so sure of, to scatter the letters of the whole alphabet, annexed, at random, to characters of a light and ridiculous cast, confusedly, with intent to provoke jealous writers into resentment, that you might take occasion, from that resentment, to expose and depreciate their characters.

The services you tell me, you would do Mr. Dennis, even though he should abuse you in return, will, I hope, give him some title to expect an exertion of your recommendatory influence in his behalf: a man, so popular as you, might secure him a great subscription: this would merit to be called a service; and, the more the world should find you abused in the works you had recommended, so much the more glorious proof would they see, that morals were, in truth, as superior, as you represent them, to those

your

of your cotemporaries. Though you will pardon me the pride of wondering, a little, how this declaration came to be made to me, whose condition not standing in need of such services, it was not, I think, so necessary, you should have taken the trouble to talk of them.

Upon the whole, Sir, I find, I am so sincerely your friend, that it is not in your own power, to make me your enemy: else, that unnecessary air of neglect and superiority, which is so remarkable, in the turn of your letter, would have nettled me to the quick; and I must triumph, in my turn, at the strength of my own heart, who can, after it, still find, and profess myself, most affectionately and sincerely

Your, etc.

LETTERS

ΤΟ

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.

The following unpublished Letters of Mr. POPE to the Right Honourable Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE, are faithfully copied from the Originals, communicated to the Editor by the favour of the Lord Bishop of St. David's.

LETTER I.

MR. POPE TO LADY M. W. MONTAGUE.

MADAM,

September 1.

I HAVE been (what I never was till now) in debt to you for a letter some weeks. I was informed you were at sea, and that 'twas to no purpose to write till some news had been heard of your arriving somewhere or other. Besides, I have had a second dangerous illness, from which I was more diligent to be recovered than from the first, having now some hopes of seeing you again. If you make any tour in Italy, I shall not easily forgive you for not acquainting me soon enough to have met you there. I am very certain I can never be polite unless I travel with you and it is never to be repaired, the loss that Homer has sustained, for want of my translating him

in Asia. You will come hither full of criticisms against a man, who wanted nothing to be in the right but to have kept you company; you have no way of making me amends, but by continuing an Asiatic when you return to me, whatever English airs you may put on to other people.

I prodigiously long for your Sonnets, your Remarks, your Oriental Learning;—but I long for nothing so much as your Oriental self. You must of necessity be advanced so far back into true nature and simplicity of manners, by these three years' residence in the East, that I shall look upon you as so many years younger than you was, so much nearer innocence (that is, truth), and infancy (that is, openness). I expect to see your soul as much thinner dressed as your body; and that you have left off, as unwieldy and cumbersome, a great many damned European habits. Without offence to your modesty be it spoken, I have a burning desire to see your soul stark naked, for I am confident 'tis the prettiest kind of white soul in the universe.-But I forget whom I am talking to; you may possibly by this time believe, according to the Prophet, that you have none; if so, shew me that which comes next to a soul; you may easily put it upon a poor ignorant Christian for a soul, and please him as well with it; -I mean your heart;-Mahomet, I think, allows you hearts; which (together with fine eyes and other agreeable equivalents) are worth all the souls on this side the world. But if I must be content with seeing your body only, God send it to come quickly: I honour it more than the diamond-casket that held