you can make to me, that I shall not most readily comply with. I wish you health and happiness of all forts, and would be glad to be inftrumental in any degree towards helping you to the least share of either. I am always, every where, most affectionately and faithfully Your, &c. LETTER III. The Bishop of ROCHESTER to Mr. POPE. I Bromley, Nov. 8, 1717. Have nothing to say to you on that melancholy subject, with an account of which the printed papers have furnish'd me, but what have already said to yourself. you When you have paid the debt of tenderness you owe to the memory of a Father, I doubt not but you will turn your thoughts towards improving that accident to your own ease and happiness. You have it now in your power, to pursue that method of thinking and living which you like beft. Give me leave, if I am not a little too early in my applications of this kind, to congratulate you upon it; and to affure you that there is no man living who wishes you bet ter, or would be more pleas'd to contribute any ways to your fatisfaction or fervice. I return you your Milton, which, upon collation, I find to be revifed, and augmented, in feveral places, as the title page of my third edition pretends it to be. When I fee you next, I will fhew you the several paffages alter'd, and added by the author, befide what you mentioned to me. I proteft to you, this last perusal of him has given me fuch new degrees, I will not fay of pleasure but of admiration and astonishment, that I look upon the fublimity of Homer, and the majefty of Virgil with fomewhat lefs reverence than I used to do. I challenge you, with all your partiality, to fhew me in the first of these any thing equal to the Allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and juftness of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring. What I look'd upon as a rant of Barrow's, I now begin to think a serious truth, and could almost venture to fet my hand to it, Hæc quicunque legit, tantum ceciniffe putabit Mæoniden Ranas, Virgilium Culices. But more of this when we meet. When I left the town the D. of Buckingham continued fo ill that he received no meffages; oblige me fo far far as to let me know how he does; at the fame time I shall know how you do, and that will be a double fatisfaction to Your, &c. I LETTER IV. MY LORD, The Anfwer. Nov. 20, 1717. Am truly obliged by your kind condolence on my Father's death, and the defire you express that I should improve this incident to my advantage. I know your Lordship's friendfhip to me is fo extenfive, that you include in that with both my spiritual and my temporal advantage; and it is what I owe to that friendship, to open my mind unreservedly to you on this head. It is true, I have loft a parent for whom no gains I could make would be any equivalent. But that was not my only tye: I thank God another ftill remains (and long may it remain) of the fame tender nature: Genitrix eft mihi-and excufe me if I fay with Euryalus, nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis. A rigid divine may call it a carnal tye, but fure it is a virtuous one; at least I am more certain that it is a duty of nature to preferve a good parent's life and happiness, than I am of any fpeculative point whatever. Ignaram hujus quodcunque pericli For fhe, my Lord, would think this feparation more grievous than any other, and I, for my part, know as little as poor Euryalus did, of the fuccefs of fuch an adventure, (for an adventure it is, and no small one, in spite of the most pofitive divinity.) Whether the change would be to my spiritual advantage, God only knows: this I know, that I mean as well in the religion I now profefs, as I can poffibly ever do in another. Can a man who thinks fo, justify a change, even if he thought both equally good? To fuch an one, the part of Joyning with any one body of Christians might perhaps be easy, but I think it would not be fo, to Renounce the other. Your Lordship has formerly advis'd me to read the best controverfies between the Churches. Shall I tell you a fecret? I did so at fourteen years old, (for I loved reading, and my father had no other books) there was a collection of all that had been written on both fides in the reign of King James the fecond: I warm'd my head with them, and the confequence was, that I found I found myself a Papist and a Proteftant by: turns, according to the laft book I read a. I am afraid most seekers are in the fame cafe, and when they ftop, they are not fo properly converted, as outwitted. You fee how little glory you would gain by my converfion. And after all, I verily believe your Lordship and I are both of the fame religion, if we were thoroughly understood by one another; and that all honeft and reasonable Chriftians would be fo, if they did but talk enough together every day; and had nothing to do together, but to ferve God, and live in peace with their neighbour. As to the temporal fide of the question, I can have no dispute with you; it is certain, all the beneficial circumftances of life, and all the fhining ones, lie on the part you would invite me to. But if I could bring myself to fancy, what I think you do but fancy, that I have any talents for active life, I want health for it; and befides it is a real truth, I have less Inclination (if poffible) than Ability. Contemplative life is not only my scene, but it is my habit too. I begun my life where most people end theirs, with a dif-relish of all that the world calls Am+ |