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Eclogues to Lord Bolingbroke? I am an ill. Judge at this distance; and besides, am, for my eafe, utterly ignorant of the commoneft things that pass in the world; but if all Courts have a sameness in them (as the Parfons phrafe it) things may be as they were in my time, when all employments went to Parliament-mens Friends, who had been useful in Elections, and there was always a huge Lift of names in arrears at the Treasury, which would at least take up your seven years expedient to difcharge even one half. I am of opinion, if you will not be offended, that the surest course would be to get your Friend who lodgeth in your house to recommend you to the next chief Governor who comes over here for a good civil employment, or to be one of his Secretaries, which your Parliament-men are fond enough of, when there is no room at home. The wine is good and reasonable; you may dine twice a week at the Deanry-house; there is a sett of company in this town fufficient for one man; folks will admire you, because they have read you, and read of you; and a good employment will make you live tolerably in London, or fumptuously here; or if you divide between both places, it will be for your health.

I wish I could do more than say I love you. I left you in a good way both for the late Court, Court, and the successors; and by the force of too much honesty or too little fublunary wifdom, you fell between two stools. Take care of your health and money; be less modest and more active; or else turn Parson and get a Bishoprick here: Would to God they would fend us as good ones from your fide !

I am ever, &c.

I

LETTER VII.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SWIFT.

Jan. 12, 1723.

Find a rebuke in a late Letter of yours, that both stings and pleaseth me extremely. Your saying that I ought to have writ a Postscript to my friend Gay's, makes me not content to write less than a whole Letter; and your seeming to take his kindly, gives me hopes you will look upon this as a fincere ef

fect of Friendship. Indeed as I cannot but

own the Laziness with which you tax me, and with which I may equally charge you, for both of us have had (and one of us hath both

had and given) a Surfeit of writing; so I

Alluding to his large work on Homer.

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really really thought you would know yourself to be so certainly intitled to my Friendship, that it was a poffeffion you could not imagine stood in need of any further Deeds or Writings to affure you of it.

Whatever you feem to think of your withdrawn and feparate state at this distance, and in this Absence, Dean Swift lives still in England, in every place and company where he would chuse to live, and I find him in all the Conversations I keep, and in all the Hearts in which I defire any share.

We have never met these many years without mention of you. Besides my old Acquaintance, I have found that all my friends of a later date are such as were yours before: Lord Oxford, Lord Harcourt, and Lord Harley may look upon me as one entailed upon them by you: Lord Bolingbroke is now returned (as I hope) to take Me with all his other Hereditary Rights: and, indeed, he feems grown so much a Philofopher, as to set his heart upon fome of them as little, as upon the Poet you gave him. It is fure my ill fate, that all those I most loved, and with whom I most lived, must be banished: After both of you left England, my constant Host was the Bishop of k Rochefter. Sure this is a nation that is cursedly afraid of being over-run with too much Polite-ness, and cannot regain one great Genius, but at the expence of another1. I tremble for my Lord Peterborow (whom I now lodge with) he has too much Wit, as well as Courage, to make a folid General": and if he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banish himself. This leads me to give you some account of the manner of my life and Conversation, which has been infinitely more various and diffipated, than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all Şexes, Parties, and Profeffions. A Glut of Study and Retirement in the first part of my life cast me into this; and this, I begin to fee, will throw me again into Study and Retirement.

1 The Bishop of Rochef- | " Lord Wharton shew'd " me a letter he had re"ceived from certain " great General in Spain;

ter thought this to be indeed the cafe; and that the price agreed on for Lord B's return was his banishment: an imagination, which so strongly poffefsed him when he went abroad, that all the expoftulations of his friends, could not convince him of the folly of it.

This Mr. Walsh serioufly thought to be the cafe, where, in a letter to Mr. Pope, he says---" When we "were in the North, my

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[Lord Peterb.] I told "him, I would by all means " have that General recal" led, and set to writing " here at home, for it was " impossible that "with so much wit as he "shewed, could be fit to " command an army or do any other business" Let. V. Sep. 9. 106.

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man

The Civilities I have met with from opposite Setts of people, have hinder'd me from being violent or four to any Party; but at the same time the Observations and Experiences I cannot but have collected, have made me less fond of, and less surprized at, any: I am therefore the more afflicted and the more angry at the Violences and Hardships I see practifed by either. The merry Vein you knew me in, is funk into a Turn of Reflection, that has made the world pretty indifferent to me; and yet I have acquired a Quietness of mind which by fits improves into a certain degree of Chearfulness, enough to make me just so good humoured as to wish that world well. My Friendships are encreased by new ones, yet no part of the warmth I felt for the old is diminished. Aversions I have none, but to Knaves (for Fools I have learned to bear with) and such I cannot be commonly civil to; for I think those men are next to Knaves who converse with them. The greatest Man in power of this fort shall hardly make me bow to him, unless I had a perfonal obligation, and that I will take care not to have. The top pleasure of my life is one I learned from you both how to gain and how to use; the Freedom of Friendship with men much my Superiors. To have pleased great men, according to Horace, is a praise; but not to