I hope you are long since perfectly restored, and risen from your gout, happy in the delights of a contented family, smiling at storms, laughing at greatness, merry over a Christmas fire, and exercising all the functions of an old patriarch in charity and hospitality. I will not tell Mrs. Bwhat I think she is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, That he only ought to know it for whom it is done; and she will allow herself to be far enough advanced above a fine lady not to desire to shine before men.

Your daughters, perhaps, may have some other thoughts, which even their mother must excuse them for, because she is a mother. I will not however, suppose those thoughts get the better of their devotions, but rather excite them and assist the warmth of them; while their prayer may be, that they may raise up and breed as irreproachable a young family as their parents have done. In a word, I fancy you all well, easy, and happy, just as I wish you: and next to that I wish you all with

me.

Next to God, is a good man: next in dignity, and next in value. Minuisti eum paullo minus ab angelis. If therefore I wish well to the good and the deserving, and desire they only should be my companions and correspondents, I must very soon and very much think of you. I want your company and your example. Pray make haste to town, so as not again to leave us; discharge the load of earth that lies on you, like one of the mountains under which, the poets say, the giants (the men of the earth) are whelmed: leave earth to the sons of the earth, your conversation is in

heaven; which, that it may be accomplished in us all, is the prayer of him who maketh this short sermon; value (to you) three pence. Adieu.

LETTER LXXI.

MR. POPE TO THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY.

June 2, 1717.

I HAD pleased myself sooner in writing to you, but that I have been your successor in a fit of sickness, and am not yet so much recovered, but that I have thoughts of using your physicians*. They are as grave persons as any of the faculty, and (like the ancients) carry their own medicaments about with them. But indeed the moderns are such lovers of raillery that nothing is grave enough to escape them. Let them laugh, but people will still have their opinions: as they think our doctors asses to them, we will think them asses to our doctors.

I am glad you are so much in a better state of health as to allow me to jest about it. My concern, when I heard of your danger, was so very serious, that I almost take it ill that Dr. Evans should tell you of it, or you mention it. I tell you fairly, if you and a few more such people were to leave the world, I would not give six-pence to stay in it.

I am not so much concerned as to the point whether you are to live fat or lean; most men of

• Asses.

wit or honesty are usually decreed to live very lean; so I am inclined to the opinion that it is decreed you shall; however, be comforted, and reflect that you will make the better busto for it.

It is something particular in you not to be satisfied with sending me your own books, but to make your acquaintance continue the frolic. Mr. Wharton forced me to take Gorboduc, which has since done me great credit with several people, as it has done Dryden and Oldham some diskindness, in showing there is as much difference between their Gorbuduc and this, as between queen Anne and king George. It is truly a scandal, that men should write with contempt of a piece which they never once saw, as those two poets did, who were ignorant even of the sex, as well as sense, of Gorboduc.

Adieu! I am going to forget you: this minute, you took up all my mind; the next, I shall think of nothing but the reconciliation with AgamemI shall be non, and the recovery of Briseis. Achilles's humble servant these two months (with the good leave of all my friends). I have no ambition so strong at present as that noble one of sir Nathaniel Lovel, recorder of London, to furnish out a decent and plentiful execution of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be expressed how heartily I wish the death of all Homer's heroes, one after another. The Lord preserve me in the day of battle, which is just approaching! Join in your prayers for me, and know me to be always your,

&c.

LETTER LXXII.

MR. POPE TO THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY.

London, March 31, 1718.

To convince you how little pain I give myself in corresponding with men of good nature and good understanding, you see I omit to answer your letters till a time when another man would be ashamed to own he had received them. If therefore you are ever moved on my account by that spirit, which I take to be as familiar to you as a quotidian ague, I mean the spirit of goodness, pray never stint it, in any fear of obliging me to a civility beyond my natural inclination. I dare trust you, sir, not only with my folly when I write, but with negligence when I do not; and expect equally your pardon for either.

If I knew how to entertain you through the rest of this paper, it should be spotted and diversified with conceits all over; you should be put out of breath with laughter at each sentence, and pause at each period, to look back over how much wit you have passed; but I have found by experience that people now-a-days regard writing as little as they do preaching: the most we can hope is to be heard just with decency and patience, once a week, by folks in the country. Here in town we hum over a piece of fine writing, and we whistle at a sermon. The stage is the only place we seem alive at; there indeed we stare, and roar, and clap hands for king George and the government. As for all other virtues but this loyalty, they are

an obsolete train, so ill dressed, that men, women, and children hiss them out of all good company. Humility knocks so sneakingly at the door, that every footman outraps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain-glory.

My lady Scudamore, from having rusticated in your company too long, really behaves herself scandalously among us: she pretends to open her eyes for the sake of seeing the sun, and to sleep because it is night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have said her prayers before: talks, without any manner of shame, of good books, and has not seen Cibber's play of the Nonjuror. I rejoiced the other day to see a libel on her toilette, which gives me some hope that you have, at least, a taste of scandal left you, in defect of all other vices.

Upon the whole matter, I heartily wish you well; but as I cannot entirely desire the ruin of all the joys of this city, so all that remains is to wish you would keep your happiness to yourselves, that the happiest here may not die with envy at a bliss which they cannot attain to. I am, &c.

LETTER LXXIII.

MR. DIGBY to MR. Pope.

Coleshill, April, 1718.

I HAVE read your letter over and over with delight. By your description of the town I imagine it to lie under some great enchantment, and am