are no body's fervent, you may be any one's friend; and as fuch I embrace you, in all conditions of life. While I have a fhilling, you fhall have fix-pencè, nay eight pence, if I can contrives to live upon a groat. I am faithfully

Your, &c.

LETTER XVII

From Mr. GAY to Mr. POPE.

Aug. 2, 1728.

WAS two or three weeks ago that I writ you

"TWAS

and

a letter; I might indeed have done it fooner; I thought of you every postday upon that account, every other day upon fome account or other. I muft beg you to give Mrs. B. my fincere thanks for her kind way of thinking of me, which I have heard of more than once from our friend at court, who seem'd in the letter fhe writ to be in high health and spirits. Confidering the multiplicity of pleafures and delights that one is over-run with in those places, I wonder how any body hath health and spirits enough to support them: I am heartily glad fhe has, and whenever I hear fo, I find it contributes to mine. You fee I am not free from dependance, tho' I have lefs attendance than I had formerly; for a great deal of my own welfare still depends upon hers. Is the widow's house to be dispos'd of yet? I have not given up my pretenfions to the Dean; if it was to be parted with, I wish one of us

had it; I hope you wish so too, and that Mrs. Blount and Mrs. Howard wifh the fame, and for the very fame reason that I wifh it. All T could hear of you of late hath been by advertisements in newspapers, by which one would think the race of Curls was multiplied; and, by the indignation fuch fellows fhow against you, that you have more merit than any body alive could have. Homer himself hath not been worfe us'd by the French. I am to tell you that the Duchess makes you her compliments, and is always inclin❜d to like any thing you do; that Mr. Congreve admires, with me, your fortitude: and loves, not envies your performance, for we are not Dunces. Adieu.

I

LETTER XVIII.

April 18, 1730. {{

my friendfhip were as effectual as it is fincere, you would be one of those people who would be vastly advantaged and enrich'd by it. I ever honour'd thofe Popes who were most famous for Nepotifm, 'tis a fign that the old fellows loved Somebody, which is not ufual in such advanced years. And I now honour Sir Robert Walpole for his extenfive bounty and goodnefs to his private friends and relations. But it vexes me to the heart when I reflect, that my friendship is so much less effectual than theirs; nay so utterly useless that it cannot give you any thing, not even a dinner at this distance, nor help the General whom I greatly love, to catch one fish. My only confolation

is to think you happier than myself, and to begin to envy you, which is next to hating you (an excellent remedy for love.) How comes it that Providence has been fo unkind to me (who am a greater object of compaffion than any fat man alive) that I am forced to drink wine, while you riot in water, prepar'd with oranges by the hand of the Duchess of Queensberry? that I am condemn'd to live by a highway fide, like an old Patriarch, receiving all guests, where my portico (as Virgil has it)

Mane Jalutantam totis vomit ædibus undam, while you are wrapt into the Idalian Groves, fprinkled with rofe water, and live in burrage, balın, and burnet up to the chin, with the Duchess of Queensberry? that I am doom'd to the drudgery of dining at court with the ladies in waiting at Windfor, while you are happily banish'd with the Duchefs of Queensberry? So partial is Fortune in her difpenfations! for I deferved ten times more to be banish'd than you, and I know fome Ladies who merit it better than even her Grace. After this I must not name any, who dare do fo much for you as to fend you their fervices. But one there is, who exhorts me often to write to you, I fuppofe, to prevent or excufe her not doing it herself; she seems (for that is all I'll fay for a courtier) to wifh you mighty well. Another, who is no courtier, frequently mentions you, and does certainly with you well I fancy, after all, they both do so.

I writ to Mr. Fortefcue, and told him the pains you took to fe him. The Dean is well; I have had many accounts of him from Irish evidence, but only

two letters &these four months, in both which you are mentioned kindly: he is in the north of Ireland, doing I know not what, with I know not whom. Mr Cleland always fpeaks of you: he is at Tunbridge, wondering at the fuperior carnivoracity of our friend: he plays now with the old Duchefs; nay dines with her, after he has won all his money. Other news I know not, but that Counsellor Bickford has hurt him felf, and has the strongest walking - staff I ever saw. He intends fpeedily to make you a vifit with it at Amesbury. I am my Lord Duke's, my Lady Duchess's, Mr. Dormer's, General Dormer's; and

Your,

&c.

LETTER

XIX.

Sept. 11, 1730.

May with great truth return your speech, that I

with the character of a reasonable man, who is rather to make himfelf easy with the things and men that are about him, than uneafy for thofe which he wants. And you, whofe abfence is in a manner perpetual to me, ought rather to be remembred as a good man gone, than breathed after as one living. You are taken from us here, to be laid up in a more bleffed ftate with fpirits of a higher kind: fuch I reckon his Grace and her Grace, fince their banifhment from an earthly court to a heavenly one, in each other and their friends; for, I conclude, none but true friends

will confort or affociate with them afterwards. I can't but look upon myself (so unworthy as a man of Twit nam seems, to be rank'd with fuch rectify'd and fublimated beings as you) as a separated spirit too from Courts and courtly fopperies. But, I own, not altogether fo divested of terrene matter, nor altogether fo fpiritualized, as to be worthy admiffion to your depths of retirement and contentment. I am tugg'd back to the world and its regards too often; and no wonder, when my retreat is but ten miles from the capital. I am within ear- -fhot of reports, within the vortex of lies and cenfures. I hear fometimes of the lampooners of beauty, the calumniators of virtue, the jokers at reafon and religion. I presume these are creatures and things as unknown to you, as we of this dirty orb are to the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter; except a few fervent prayers reach you on the wings of the poft, from two or three of your zealous votaries at this diftance; as one Mrs. H. who lifts up her heart now and then to you, from the midst of the Colluvies and fink of human greatnefs at W-r; one Mrs. B. that fancies you may remember her while you liv'd in your mortal and too transitory state at Peterf ham; one Lord B. who admir'd the Duchefs before fhe grew a Goddess; and a few others.

To defcend now to tell you what are our wants, our complaints, and our miseries here; I muft feri. oufly fay, the lofs of any one good woman is too great to be born easily: and poor Mrs. Rollinfon, tho' a private woman, was fuch. Her husband is gone into Oxfordshire very melancholy, and thence to the Bath, to live on, for fuch is our fate, and duty. Vol. VIII.

K