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OU writ me a very kind Letter some months ago,

You

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and told me you were then upon the point of taking a journey into Devonshire. That hindered my anfwering you, and I have fince feveral times inquired of you, without any fatisfaction; for fo I call the knowledge of your welfare, or of any thing that concerns you. I past two months in Suffex, and fince my return have been again very ill. I writ to Lintot in hopes of hearing of you, but had no answer to that point. Our friend Mr. Cromwell too has been filent all this year; I believe he has been displeased at fome or other of my freedoms, which I very innocently take, and most

1 Wee fee by the letters to Mr. Cromwell, that Mr. Pope was used to railly him on his turn for trifling and pedantic criticism. So he lost his two early friends, Cromwell and Wycherly, by his zeal to correct the bad poetry of the one, and the bad taste of the other.

with those I think moft my friends. But this I know nothing. of; perhaps he may have opened to you: and if I know you right, you are of a temper to cement friendships, and not to divide them. I really much love Mr. Cromwell, and have a true affection foryourself, which, if I had any intereft in the world, or power with those who have, I should not be long without manifefting to you. I defire you will not, either out of modesty, or a vicious distruft of another's value for you (thofe two eternal foes to merit) imagine that your letters and converfation are not always welcome to me. There is no man more intirely fond of good-nature or ingenuity than myself, and I have feen too much of thofe qualities in you to be any thing less than

Your, &c.

LETTER II.

Dec. 24, 1721.

IT has been my good fortune within this month paft,

to hear more things that have pleas'd me than (I think) almost in all my time befide. But nothing upon my word has been fo home- felt a fatisfaction as the news you tell me of yourself: and you are not in the least mistaken, when you congratulate me upon your own good fuccefs: for I have more people out of whom to be happy, than any ill-natur'd man can boast of. I may with honefty affirm to you, that notwithstanding the many inconveniences and disadvantages they commonly talk of in the Res angufta domi, I have never

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found any other, than the inability of giving people of merit the only certain proof of our value for them, in doing them fome real fervice. For after all, if we could but think a little, felf-love might make us philofophers, and convince us quantuli indiget Natura! Ourselves are easily provided for; 'tis nothing but the circumftantials, and the Apparatus or equipage of hu man life, that cofts fo much the furnishing. Only what a luxurious man wants for horses, and footmen, a good-natur'd man wants for his friends, or the indigent./

I fhall fee you this winter with much greater pleafure than I could the laft; and, I hope, as much of your time, as your attendance on the Duchefs a will allow you to spare to any friend, will not be thought loft upon one who is as much so as any man. I must alfo put you in mind, though you are now fecretary to this Lady, that you are likewife fecretary to nine other Ladies, and are to write fometimes for them too. He who is forced to live wholly upon thofe Ladies favours is indeed in as precarious a condition as any He who does what Chaucer fays for fuftenance but they are very agreeable companions, like other Ladies, when a man only paffes a night or fo with them at his leifure, and away. I am

Your, &c.

2 Duchefs of Monmouth, to whom he was just then made Secretary. 2.

LETTER III.

Aug. 23, 1713.

UST as I receiv'd yours, I was fet down to write

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to you, with fome fhame that I had fo long deferred it. But I can hardly repent my neglect, when it gives me the knowledge how little you infift upon ceremony, and how much a greater fhare in your memory I have, than I deferve. I have been near a week in London, where I am like to remain, till I become, by Mr. Jervas's help, Elegans Formarum Spectator. I begin to discover beauties that were till now imperceptible to me. Every corner of an eye, or turn of a nofe or ear, the smallest degree of light or fhade on a cheek, or in a dimple, have charms to distract me. I no longer look upon Lord Plaufible as ridiculous, for admiring a Lady's fine tip of an ear and pretty elbow (as the Plain Dealer has it) but am in fome danger even from the ugly and difagreeable, fince they may have their retired beauties, in one trait or other about them. You may guess in how uneafy a ftate I am, when every day the performances of others appear more beautiful and excellent, and my own more despicable. I have thrown away three Dr. Swifts, each of which was once my vanity, two Lady Bridgwaters, a Duchefs of Montague, befides half a dozen Earls, and one knight of the garter, I have crucified Chrift over again in effigie, and made a Madona as old as her mother St. Anne. Nay, what is yet more miraculous, I have rivall'd St. Luke himself in painting, and as, 'tis faid, an

angel came and finifh'd his piece, fo, you would fwear, a devil put the last hand to mine, 'tis fo begrim'd and finutted. However, I comfort myself with a Christian reflection, that I have not broken the commandment, for my pictures are not the likeness of any thing in heaven above, or in earth below, or in the water under the earth. Neither will any body adore or worship them, except the Indians fhould have a fight of them, who, they tell us, worship certain idols purely for their ugliness.

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I am very much recreated and refreshed with the news of the advancement of the Fan 3, which, I doubt not, will delight the eye and sense of the fair, as long as that agreeable machine shall play in the hands of pofterity. I am glad your fan is mounted fo foon, but I would have you varnish and glaze it at your leifure, and polifh the fticks as much as you can. You may then caufe it to be borne in the hands of both fexcs, no less in Britain, than it is in China; where it is ordinary for a Mandarine to fan himself cook after a debate, and a Statefman to hide his face with it when he tells a grave lie. I ain, &c.

LETTER IV.

DEAR MR. GAY,

Sept. 23, 1714.

7Elcome to your native foil 4! welcome to your

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friends! thrice welcome to me! whether returned

3 A Poem of Mr. Gay's, fo intitled.

4 In the beginning of this year Mr. Gay went over to Hanover with the Earl of Clarendon, who was sent thither by Q. Anne. On

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