your Care. I believe there's fome Fatality in it, that you fhould always, from Time to Time, be doing thofe particular Things that make me enamonr'd of you.

I write this from Windfor Foreft, of which I am come to take my laft Look. We here bid our Neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hang'd do their Fellow Prisoners, who are condemn'd to follow them a few weeks after. I parted from honest Mr. D with Tenderness; and from old Sir William Trumball, as from a venerable Prophet, foretelling, with lifted Hands, the Miferies to come, from which he is just going to be remov'd himself. Perhaps, now I have learn'd fo far as

Nos dulcia linquimus arva

may be

Nos patriam fugimus

Let that, and all elfe be as Heaven pleases! I have provided just enough to keep a Man of Honours. I believe you and I shall never be asham'd of each other. I know I wish my Country well; and if it undoes me, it fhall not make we wish otherwife.

my next Leffon

Mr. Blount, though we can't find him busy in any Action, and as to his mixing with People fufpected, it was faid in his Favour, he actually did it to perfuade them from fuch treasonable and headlong Courses, yet he thought proper to leave England, and not remain any longer where a ftrict Eye was kept over every Body. Mr. Pope writes to him abroad a Letter dated Sept. 8, 1717:

Dear Sir,

I

Think your leaving England was like a good Man's leaving the World, with the bleffed Confcience

of

of having acted well in it: And I hope you have receiv'd your Reward, in being happy where you are. I believe, in the religious Country you now inhabit, you'll be better pleas'd to find I confider you in this Light, than if I compar'd you to those Greeks and Romans, whofe Conftancy in fuffering Pain, and whofe Refolution in Pursuit of a generous End, you would rather imitate than boaft of

But I had a melancholy Hint the other Day, as if you were yet a Martyr to the Fatigue your Virtue made you undergo on this Side the Water. I beg, if your Health be reftor'd to you, not to deny me the Joy of knowing it: Your Endeavours of Service, and good Advices to the poor Papifts, put me in mind of Noah's preaching forty Years to thofe Folks that were to be drown'd at last. At the worst, I heartily with your Ark may find an Aratat, and your Wife and Family (the Hopes of the good Patriarch) land fafely, after the Deluge, upon the Shore of Totnefs.

I know you will take part in rejoicing for the Victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks, in the Zeal you bear to the Chriftian Intereft, though your Coufin of Oxford (with whom I dined Yesterday) fays, there is no other Difference in the Chriftians beating the Turks, or the Turks beating the Chriftians, than whether the Emperor fhall first declare War against Spain, or Spain declare it against the Emperor. I muft add another Apopthegm of the fame. noble Earl; it was the Saying of a politick Prince, Time and he would get the better of any two others. To which Lord Oxford made this Answer,

Time and I'gainst any two,
Chance and I'gainst Time and you.

I am,

Dear Sir, &c.

We

We before faid, that Mr. Pope engag'd himself very much in the Affairs of this Family, and have, as we think, given fufficient Reason for it: Had he had no real Efteem for Mr. Blount, his high Regard for Mrs. Blount had made him fhow himself kind to him; had he had no Value for her, the Merit, the great Merit of that Gentleman, had extorted the fame Love, Friendship, and Affection, he now bore him; he lov'd many, but these * above all.

It was here he was fure of Truth and Peace, the Gentlenefs and Evenness of their Tempers were, as he enjoy'd the conftant Benefit, one of the chief Bleffings of his Life; it is not eafy to exprefs the great Satisfaction of certain Friendship, at all Times the fame, not a ruffling Paffion, but a folid, quiet, and fettled Amity, ripen'd by Time, to fly to for Counfel, to unbofom Secrets, to complain to, to hear Counfel, Secrets, and Complaints from, and laftly, (can there be a greater Pleafure?) to rejoice with. This Happiness was enjoy'd by Mr. Pope till Death, for Mrs. Blount, (to whom very few, if any can compare) as may be feen by Mr. Pope's Will, outlives him; but how little will all thofe fine Curiofities, thofe Urns, thofe Ornaments, and that sweet Grotto pleafe, now what made them Things worfe poffeffing, no longer appears among them: His Form, because it contain'd a Soul fo beautiful, never difpleas'd, Who is there fo beautiful that would not change that fading and uncertain Accident, for a Soul fo richly adorn'd? Or what external Grace could have been offer'd Mr. Pope, in lieu of those hining inward Graces and Harmonies, which were engrafted

This Gentleman return'd after a Time, and died in London, in the Year 1726, greatly lamented by all his Acquaintance, especially our Author.

engrafted in his large Mind? If he had not been fhackled with the Chain of mistaken Faith, he had been (nay, as it was, he was) a Wonder, and future Ages will read him with Admiration of Applause, despairing (as I believe most do now despair) of feeing another Poet, to bring in Comparison, in those Ways of Writing, in which he wrote and excell'd; for he excell'd in all he attempted. The Stile of Milton, nor his Manner, belong'd not to our Poet, Milton's Fame is built upon a lafting Foundation, without a Rival in any Respect; but neither could he have come near our Poet, attempting in his Manner, less still could our Poet do in the Hudibraftick Way, though he admir'd Butler, he did nothing to resemble him, he hated bad Imitations, and seems wholly to have ow'd what is not his own, as to Numbers, to Waller and Dryden, and two better Masters none need ftudy; he lov'd Cowley, but copied nothing from him, and Chaucer as a Wit, but for Numbers, our Language was then hardly begun to be polifh'd, yet the Strength of that Prince of the English Poets Genius, fometimes carried him as high, and as eafy Flights, as any of the Moderns, of which many Examples might be given: We think his Wit unequall'd by any Modern, taking them in better Language, as they appear now, What will they do when the Duft of as much Time, as fince Chaucer, fhall obfcure them to the future Ages? So that we are no longer to feek for an unanfwerable Reafon for Mrs. Blount's publick and confefs'd Admiration for our Poet; fhe, the fartheft in the World from a Coquet, had as little of the Prude, a Prude would never have had any Charms for Mr. Pope, to whom Mrs. Howe faid one Day, You Men call us Strange Names, fome of them I don't understand, Goquetry, indeed, I guess at; but Prudery, for Heaven's

Sake

Sake make me know thorougly what that Prudery is. Mr. Pope wrote her an Answer in the Leaf of an Ivory Book.

WH

HAT is Prudery? 'Tis a Beldam, Seen with Wit and Beauty feldom, 'Tis a Fear that starts at Shadows, 'Tis (no, 'tis n't) like Mifs Meadows. 'Tis a Virgin hard of Feature, Old, and void of all good Nature; Lean and fretful, would seem wife, Yet plays the Fool before fhe dies. 'Tis an ugly envious Shrew, That rails at dear L'Epell and You

On the Death of Mrs. Blount's Brother, who died of the Small Pox, which though she had never had, did not deter her from being conftantly with him. This must be acknowledged a Sifterly Love beyond the common Pitch, and fhews fuch Abfence of Fear and Prefence of Mind, as is not to be expected in the Nature of her Sex, and must furprize every Body. On this Occafion we say Mr. Pope fent her the following.

Dear Madam,

HA

AVING no lefs Admiration for your Courage and good Nature, than Sympathy with your Grief, I am so highly fenfible of both the one and the other, that if I were capable to render you thofe Commendations which were justly due to you, and that Comfort whereof you ftand in Need, I must confefs I fhould be much troubled where to begin; for what Obligations can be more equally inforcing, than to render to fo eminent a Virtue the Honour it merits; and to fo violent Affliction the Comfort it VOL. II. requires?

E