Manner of your Favourite Rochefoucault, than in Verse:* And this when nothing more is done but marking the Repetitions in the Margin, will be an easy Task for yourself to proceed upon, notwithstanding the bad Memory you complain of. I am unfeignedly, dear Sir, Your's, &c. In Compliance with his Request, Mr. Pope, as you have seen, began to look them over, and as there was great Room for Amendment, to blot and interline, and sometimes almost new make Parts of the Performances. He was much complimented by Mr. Wycherley till the above Letters of Diffatisfaction came to his Hand, and one more, for Mr. Pope still continu'd to write. This last was of a very extraordinary Nature, letting him know in few and hollow Words, that he was going out of Town without faying where, and did not expect to hear from him till he came back. This extorted from Mr. Pope a Proteftation that nothing should induce him ever to write to him again. In a Letter to Mr. Cromwell he expresses himself thus: I Hope it will be no Offence to give my moft hearty Service to Mr. Wycherley, tho' I perceive. by his last to me, I am not to trouble him with my Letters, * Mr. Wycherley lived five Years after, to December 1715, but little Progress was made in this Design, thro' his Old Age, and the Increase of his Infirmities. However, fome of the Verses which had been touched by Mr. P. with 308 of these Maxims in Profe were found among his Papers, which having the Misfortune to fall into the Hands of a Mercenary, were published in 1728, in Octavo, under the Title of The Posthumous Works of Willaim Wycherley, Esq; Letters, since he there told me he was going instantly out of Town, and till his Return was my Seryant, &c. I guess by Your's he is yet with you, and beg you to do what you may with all Truth and Honour, that is, assure him I have ever born all the Respect and Kindness imaginable to him. I do not know to this Hour what it is that has estrang'd him from me; but this I know, that he may for the future be more fafely my Friend, since no Invitation of his shall ever more make me free with him. I could not have thought any Man had been so very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own Experience of a Friend. Indeed to believe no body, may be a Maxim of Safety, but not fo much of Honesty. There is but one Way I know of conversing safely with all Men, that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by saying or doing nothing that deserves to be conceal'd, and I can truly boast this Comfort in my Affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealousy, which is become his Nature, and shall never be his Enemy, whatsoever he says of me. Your, &c. Notwithstanding all this, he kept a constant Respect, and a Sort of Reverence to him, whenever spoke of he lamented the Misunderstanding between them, which wholly rose from the Jealousy, Weakness and Petulancy of Mr. Wycherley, and curs'd the Person (a Thing not customary with him) whose wicked Infinuations had been the Cause of it. Upon the Death of that humorous and truly witty and natural Poet, he wrote his Friend Mr. Blount a Letter, which plainly shews his Opinion of his great Abilities, his Love of him as a good Man, and his Love of him as one he was refolv'd always to be a Friend to, though Age, Vexation, and the very ill Usage of his next Heir had made him forward and almost too peevish to be humour'd by the best Natures, yet so very fufpicious as to be open to all Whispers and Calumnies. Mr. Pope's Letter is dated 21 Jan. 1715-6. I To EDWARD BLOUNT, Efq; Dear Sir, Know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present, as some Circumftances of the laft Act of that eminent Comic Poet, and our Friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, as I doubt not he did all his Acquaintance, that he would marry as foon as his Life was despair'd of. Accordingly a few Days before his Death he underwent the Ceremony: and join'd together those two Sacraments, which wife Men say should be the last we receive; for if you observe, Matrimony is plac'd after Extreme Unction in our Catechism, as a Kind of Hint of the Order of Time in which they are to be taken. The old Man then lay down, fatisfied in the Confcience of having, by this one Act, paid his just Debts, oblig'd a Woman who (he was told) had Merit, and shewn an heroic Resentment of the ill Ufage of his next Heir. Some Hundred Pounds which he had with the Lady, discharg'd those Debts; a Jointure of Four Hundred a Year made her a Recompence; and the Nephew he left to comfort himself, as well as he could, with the miferable Remains of a mortgaged Estate. I saw our Friend twice after this was done, less peevish in his Sickness than he used to be in his Health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much much asham'd of marrying. The Evening before he expir'd, he call'd his young Wife to the Bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one Request, the last he should make. Upon her Afsurances of confenting to it, he told her, My Dear, it is only this; that you will never marry an old Man again. I cannot help remarking, that Sickness which often destroys both Wit and Wisdom, yet feldom has Power to remove that Talent which we call Humour. Mr. Wycherley shew'd his even in this laft Compliment, tho' I think his Request a little hard; for why should he bar her from doubling her Jointure on the same eafy Terms. So trivial as these Circumstances are, I should not be difpleas'd myself to know such Trifles, when they concern or characterise any eminent Person. The wifest and wittiest of Men are feldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober Moments. At least our Friend ended much in the Character he had liv'd in, and Horace's Rule for a Play may as well be applied to him as a Playwright: - fervetur ad imum Qualis ab inceptu procefferit, & fibi conftet. I am, &c. From Time to Time he shew'd himself more to the World, and brought to the Light a Sacred Poem call'd the Meffiah, in Imitation of tho' much exceeding Virgil's Polio, concluding thus : No more the rifing Sun shall gild the Morn, i O'erflow thy Courts: The Light himself shall shine Windsor Forest, a Poem address'd to my Lord Lansdown, in which is the beautiful Metamorphofis of a Nymph into the River Loddon. Here, as old Bards have fung, Diana stray'd, Bath'd in the Springs, or fought the cooling Shade: Here arm'd with Silver Bows, in early Dawn, Her buskin'd Virgins trac'd the Dewy Lawn. Above the rest a rural Nymph was fam'd, Thy Offspring, Thames! the fair Lodana nam'd; (Lodona's Fate, in long Oblivion cast, The Muse shall fing, and what she sings shall laft) Scarce could the Goddess from her Nymph be But by the Crefcent and the golden Zone. [known, She scorn'd the Praise of Beauty, and the Care, A Belt her Waste, a Fillet binds her Hair, A painted Quiver on her Shoulder founds And with her Dart the flying Deer she wounds. It chanc'd, as eager of the Chace, the Maid Beyond the Forest's verdant Limits stray'd, Pan faw and lov'd, and furious with Defire Pursu'd her Flight; her Flight increas'd his Fire. Not half so swift the trembling Doves can fly, When the fierce Eagle cleaves the liquid Sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce Eagle moves, [Doves; When thro' the Clouds he drives the trembling As from the God with fearful Speed she flew, As did the God with equal Speed pursue. Now |