fent I am the moft unfit man in the world to
anfwer, by my lofs of one of the beft of Fathers.
He had lived in fuch a courfe of Temperance as
was enough to make the longeft life agreable to him,
and
* At which General Oglethorpe was prefent, and of which I
have heard him give a lively defcription.
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ESQ^ 27
and in fuch a courfe of Piety as fufficed to make the
moft fudden death fo alfo. Sudden indeed it was :
However, I heartily beg of God to give me fuch a one,
provided I can lead fuch a life. I leave him to the
mercy of God, and to the piety of a religion that ex-
tends beyond the grave : Si qua eft ea cura, etc.
He has left me to the ticklim management of fo
narrow a fortune, that any one falfe ftep would be
fatal. My mother is in that difpirited ftate of refig-
nation, which is the effect of long life, and the lofs of
what is dear to us. We are really each of us in want
of a friend, of fuch an humane turn as yourfelf, to
make almoft any thing defirable to us. I feel your
abfence more than ever, at the fame time I can lefs
exprefs my regards to you than ever ; and mail make
this, which is the moft fmcere letter I ever writ to
you, the fhorteft and fainteft perhaps of any you
have received. It is enough if you reflect, that barely
Jo remember any perfon when one's mind is taken up
with a fenfible forrow, is a great degree of friendfliip.
I can fay no more but that I love you, and all that
are yours ; and that I wifh it may be very long before
any of yours mail feel for you what I now feel for
my father. Adieu.
28 LETTERS TO AND
LETTER XL
Rentcomb in Gloucefterfliire, Oft. 3, 1721.
OUR kind letter has overtaken me here, for I
have been in and about this country ever fince
your departure. I am well pleafed to date this from
a place fo well known to Mrs. Blount, where I write
as if I were dictated to by her anceftors, whofe faces
are all upon me. I fear none fo much as Sir Chrif-
topher Guife, who, being in his fhirt, feems as ready
to combat me, as her own Sir John was to demolifh
Duke Lancaftere. I dare fay your Lady will recoi-
led his figure. I looked upon the manlion, walls,
and terraces ; the plantations, and Hopes, which na-
ture has made to command a variety of valleys and
riling woods ; with a veneration mixed with a plea-
fure, that reprefented her to me in thofe puerile
amufements, which engaged her fo many years ago
in this place. I fancied I faw her fober over a fam-
pler, or gay over a jointed baby. I dare fay (he did
one thing more, even in thofe early times ; " remem-
* bered her Creator in the days of her youth."
You defcribe fo well your hermitical flate of life,
that none of the ancient anchorites could go beyond
you, for a cave in a rock, with a fine fpring, or any
of the accommodations that befit a folitary. Only I
don't remember to have read, that any of thofe venera-
ble and holy perfonages took with them a lady, and
4 begat
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ES(^ 29
begat fons and daughters. You muft modeftly be
content to be accounted a patriarch. But were you
a little younger, I fhould rather rank you with Sir
Amadis, and his fellows. If Piety be fo romantic, I
fhall turn hermit in good earned ; for, I fee, one may
go fo far as to be poetical, and hope to fave one's
foul at the fame time. I really wilh myfelf fomething
more, that is, a prophet ; for I wifh I were, as Ha-
bakkuk, to be taken by the hair of his head, and vifit
Daniel in his den. You are very obliging in faying,
I have now a whole family upon my hands to whom
to difcharge the part of a friend ; I aflure you, I like
them all fo well, that I will never quit my hereditary
right to them ; you have made me yours, and con-
fequently them mine. I flill fee them walking on
my green at Twickenham, and gratefully remember,
not only their green gowns, but the inftructions they
gave me how to Hide down and trip up the fteepeft
flopes of my mount.
Pray think of me fometimes, as I mall often of you,
and know me for what I am, that is,
Your, etc.
30 LETTERS TO ANI>
LETTER XII.
: "; '\ a-*/. { i aiulkst "n/ 1
Ol. 21, 1721.
OUR very kind and obliging manner of enquir-
ing after me, among the firft concerns of life, at
your refufcitation, mould have been fooner anfwered
and acknowledged. I fincerely rejoice at your re-
covery from an illnefs which gave me lefs pain than
it did you, only from my ignorance of it. I mould
have elfe been ferioufly and deeply afflicted, in the
thought of your danger by a fever. I think it a fine
and a natural thought, which I lately read in a letter
of Montaigne's published by P. Cofte*, giving an ac-
count of the laft words of an intimate friend of his :
" Adieu, my friend ! the pain I feel will foon be
" over ; but I grieve for that you are to feel, which
" is to laft you for life."
I join with your family in giving God thanks for
lending us a worthy man fomewhat longer. The
comforts you receive from their attendance, put me
in mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune faid one
day to me. " Alas, I have nothing to do but to die ;
" I am a poor individual ; no creature to wifh, or to
" fear, for my life or death : 'Tis the only rea-
" fon I have to repent being a fmgle man ; now I
" grow
* Who gave the beft edition of Montaigne in 4*0 ever pub-
lifhed. He was for fome time a preceptor to the Earl of
Shaftfbury.
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ESQ., 31
" grow old, I am like a tree without a prop, and with-
* 6 out young trees to grow round me, for company
" and defence."
I hope the gout will foon go after the fever, and
all evil things remove far from you. But pray tell
me, when will you move towards us ? If you had
an interval to get hither, I care not what fixes you
afterwards except the gout. Pray come and never
ftir from us again. Do away your dirty acres, cafl
them to dirty people, fuch as in the Scripture-phrafe
poffefs the land. Shake off your earth like the noble
animal hi Milton.
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, he fprings as broke from bonds,
And rampant (hakes his brinded mane: The ounce,
The lizard, and the tyger, as the mole
Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks.
But, I believe, Milton never thought thefe fine verfes*
of his mould be applied to a man felling a parcel of
dirty acres ; though in the main, I think, it may have
fome refemblance. For, God knows ! this little fpace
of ground nouriflies, buries, and confines us, as that
of Eden did thefe creatures, till we can fliake it loofe,
at leaft in our affections and defires.
Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you : Let
Mrs. Blount know that me is in the lift of my
Memento,
* One of the few paflages he has ever quoted with approbation
from Milton.
32 LETTERS TO AND
Memento, Domine, famulorum famularumque's, etc.
My poor mother is far from well, declining; and
I am watching over her, as we watch an expiring
taper, that even when it looks brighteft, waftes fafteft.
I am (as you will fee from the whole air of this letter)
not in the gaieft nor eafieft humour, but always with
(incerity,
Your, etc.
LETTER XIII.
June 27, 1723.
u may truly do me the juftice to think no man
is more your fincere well-wiflier than myfelf, or
more the fincere well-wifher of your whole family ;
with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture
of envy to you all, for loving one another fo well ;
and for enjoying the fweets of that life, which can
only be tafted by people of good-will.
They from all fhades the darknefs can exclude,
And from a defert banim folitude.
Torbay is a paradife, and a ftorm is but an amufe-
ment to fuch people. If you drink Tea upon a pro-
montory that over-hangs the fea, it is preferable to an
Affembly : And the whittling of the wind better mufic
to contented and loving minds, than the Opera to the
fpleenful,
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ESq._ 33
fpleenful, ambitious, difeafed, diftafled, and diffracted
fouls which this world affords ; nay, this world affords
no other. Happy they, who are banifhed from us !
but happier they, who can banifh themfelves ; or
more properly banifh the world from them !
Alas ! I live at Twickenham !
I take that period to be very fublime, and to in-
clude more than a hundred fentences that might be
writ to exprefs diftrac~lion, hurry, multiplication of
nothings, and all the fatiguing perpetual bufmefs of
having no bufmefs to do. You will wonder I reckon
tranflating the Odyffey as nothing. But whenever I
think ferioufly (and of late I have met with fo many
occafions of thinking ferioufly, that I begin never to
think otherwife) I cannot but think thefe things very
idle ; as idle as if a beaft of burden mould go on jing-
ling his bells, without bearing any thing valuable about
him, or ever ferving his mafter.
Life's vain amufements, amidft which we dwell ;
Not weigh'd, or underftood, by the grim God of Hell !
faid a heathen poet ; as he is tranflated by a chriftian
Bifhop*, who has, firfl by his exhortations, and fince
by his example, taught me to think as becomes a
reafonable creature but he is gone!
I remember I promifed to write to you as foon as
I mould hear you were got home. You mufl look
on
* Atterbury.
VOL, VIII. D
34 LETTERS TO AND
on this as the firft day I have been myfelf, and pafs
over the mad interval un-imputed to me. How
punctual a correfpondent I mail henceforward be
able or not able to be, God knows : But He knows,
I mail ever be a punctual and grateful friend, and all
the good wilhes fuch of an one will ever attend
you.
LETTER XIV.
Twickenham, June 2, 1725.
T7 ou mew yourfelf a juft man and a friend in thofe
gueffes and fuppofitions you make at the poflible
reafons of my filence ; every one of which is a true
one. As to forgetfulnefs of you or yours, I aflure
you, the promifcuous converfations of the town ferve
only to put me in mind of better, and more quiet, to-
be had in a comer of the world (undifturbed, inno-
cent, ferene, and fenfible) with fuch as you. Let no
accefs of any diftruft make you think of me differently
in a cloudy day from what you do in the moft fun-
fhiny weather. Let the young ladies be affured I
make nothing new in my gardens without wifhing to
fee the print of their fairy fteps in every part of them.
I have put the laft hand to my works of this kind,
in happily rimming the fubterraneous way and grotto :
I there found a fpring of the cleared water, which
4 falls
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ESQ^ 35
falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes through the cavern
day and night. From the river Thames*, you fee
through my arch up a walk of the wildernefs, to a
kind of open Temple, wholly compofed of mells in
the ruftic manner ; and from that diftance under the
temple you look down through a floping arcade of
trees, and fee the fails on the river palling fuddenly
and vanifhing, as through a perfpeclive glafs. When
you fhut the doors of this grotto f, it becomes on the
inftant, from a luminous room, a Camera obfcura ; on
the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills,
woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture in
their vifible radiations ; and when you have a mind
to light it up, it affords you a very different fcene ; it
is finiflied with mells interfperfed with pieces of look-
ing-glafs in angular forms ; and in the ceiling is a
ftar of the fame material, at which when a lamp (of
an
* I wifh he had made a full description of his garden and
grounds, as Horace has done in his fixteenth Epiftle. The Abbe
Cap. de Chaupy has written a long differtation concerning the fpot
where the Villa of Horace ftood, which he fixes in the Valley of
Licenza, belonging to the Prince Borghefe, fourteen miles from
Tivoli and five from Vico Varo.
f Dr. Johnfon, who had no tafte for rural fcenes, nor know-
ledge of laying out grounds, fpeaks with an unreafonable contempt
of this romantic grotto, and of the pains taken to embellifh it.
This is a clear and pi&urefque defcription of this celebrated fpot.
Our Poet's good tafte in gardening was unqueftionable. " For the
honour of this art," Lord Bacon fays, " a man mail ever fee, that
when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build ftately,
fooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening were the greater per-
36 LETTERS TO AND
an orbicular figure of thin alabafter) is hung in the
middle, a thoufand pointed rays glitter, and are re-
flected over the place. There are connected to this
grotto by a narrower paflage two porches, one to-
wards the river of fmooth ftones, full of light, and
open ; the other towards the Garden fhadowed with
trees, rough with fhells, flints and iron-ores. The
bottom is paved with fimple pebble, as is alfo the ad-
joining walk up the wildernefs to the temple, in the
natural tafte, agreeing not ill with the little dripping
murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It
wants nothing to compleat it but a good ftatue with
an infcription, like that beautiful antique one which
you know I am fo fond of :
.
Hujus Nympka loci} facri cujlodia fontis,
Dormio, dum blandx fentio murmur aquar.
Farce meum, qttifquis tangis cava marmora^ fomnum
Rumpere ; ft bibas y five liivace y face*.
Nymph
* The fimplicity of this ancient infcription is indeed eminently
beautiful ; fo alfo is the following imitation of it by a late writer
of true tafte, and lover of the ancients ;
SUB IMAGINE PANIS RUDI LAPIDE.
Hie ftans vertice montium fupremo
Pan, glaucei nemoris nitere frudus
Cerno defuper, uberemque fylvam.
Quod 11 purpurese, viator, uvx
Te defiderium capit, roganti
Non totum invideo tibi racemum.
Quin fi fraude mala quid hinc reporter,
Hoc pcenas luito caput bacillo.
Our
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ESC^ 37
Nymph of the grot, thefe facred fprings I keep,
And to the murmur of thefe waters fleep ;
Ah fpare my {lumbers, gently tread the cave !
And drink in filence, or in filence lave !
You'll think I have been very poetical in this de-
fcription*, but it is pretty near the truth. I wifli you
were here to bear teftimony how little it owes to Art,
either the phce itfelf, or the image I give of it.
I am, etc.
Our author wrote the following lines on a grotto adorned with
Oiell-work, at Crux Eafton, Hants, which ought to be preferved :
Here fhunning idlenefs at once and praife,
This radiant pile nine rural fitters raife ;
The glitt'ring emblem of each fpotlefs dame,
Clear as her foul;, jnd mining as her frame ;
Beauty which Nature only can impart,
And fuch a polifh as difgraces Art ;
But Fate difpos'd them in this humble fort,
And hid in defarts what wou'd charm a court.
* I mall here infert two Letters to Sir Hans Sloane, on the
ornaments of this grotto.
To Sir HANS SLOANE.
SIR, Twickenham, March 30, 1742.
I am extremely obliged to you for your intended kindnefs of
furnifhing my grotto with that furprizing natural curiofity, which
indeed I have ardently fought fome time. But I would much rather
part with every thing of this fort, which I have collected, than de-
prive your moil copious collection of one thing that may be want-
ing to it. If you can fpare it, I mall be doubly pleafed, in having
it, and in owing it to you.
The further favour you offer me, of a review of your curiofities,
deferves my acknowledgment. Could I hope that among the
minerals and fofllls which I have gathered, there was any thing -
D 3 you
3 8 LETTERS TO AND
LETTER XV.
Sept. 13, 1725.
T SHOULD be afhamed to own the receipt of a very
kind letter from you, two whole months from the
date of this ; if I were not more amamed to tell a
lye, or to make an excufe, which is worfe than a lye
(for being built upon fome probable circumftance, it
makes ufe of a degree of truth to falfify with, and is
a lye
you could like, it would be efteemed an obligation (if you have
time as the feafon improves ) to look upon them and command any.
I mall take the firft favourable opportunity to inquire when it may
be leaft inconvenient to wait on you, which will be a true fatisfac-
tion to, SIR,
Your moft obliged,
and moft humble Servant,
A. POPE.
To Sir HANS SLOANE.
SIR, Twickenham, May 22, 1742.
I have many true thanks to pay you, for the two joints of the
giant's caufeway, which I found yefterday at my return to Twit-
nam, perfedly fafe and entire. They will be a great ornament to
my grotto, which confifts wholly of natural productions, owing
nothing to the chiflel or polifli ; and which it would be much my
ambition to entice you one day to look upon. I will firft wait on
you at Chelfea, and embrace with great pleafure the fatisfa&ion
you can better than any man afford me, of fo extenfive a view of
Nature, in her moft curious works. I am, with all refpeft,
SIR, Your moft obliged,
and moft humble Servant,
A. POPE.
FROM EDW. BLOUNT, ES(^ 39
a lye guarded.) Your letter has been in my pocket
in conftant wearing, till that, and the pocket, and the
fuit, are worn out, by which means I have read it
forty times, and I find by fo doing that I have not
enough confidered and reflected upon many others
you have obliged me with; for true friendfhip, as
they fay of good writing, will bear reviewing a thou-
fand times, and flill difcover new beauties.
I have had a fever, a fhort one, but a violent : I
am now well ; fo it mail take up no more of this
paper.
I begin now to expect you in town to make the
winter come more tolerable to us both. The fum-
mer is a kind of heaven, when we wander in a pa-
radifaical fcene among groves and gardens ; but at
this feafon, we are, like our poor firft parents, turned
out of that agreeable though folitary life, and forced
to look about for more people to help to bear our la-
bours, to get into warmer houfes, and live together
in cities.
I hope you are long fmce perfectly reftored, and
rifen from your gout, happy in the delights of a con-
tented family, fmiling at. ftorms, laughing at greatnefs,
merry over a Chriftmas-fire, and exercifing all the
functions of an old Patriarch in charity and hofpi-
tality. 1 will not tell Mrs. B* what I think me is
doing ; for I conclude it is her opinion, that he only
ought to know it for whom it is done; and me will
allow herfelf to be far enough advanced above a fine
lady, not to defire to mine before men.
D 4 Your
40 LETTERS, etc.
Your daughters perhaps may have fome other
thoughts, which even their mother muft excufe them
for, becaufe me is a mother. I will not, however
fuppofe thofe thoughts get the better of their devo-
tions, but rather excite them and aflift the warmth of
them ; while their prayer may be, that they may rife
up and breed as irreproachable a young family as
their parents have done. In a word, I fancy you all
well, eafy, and happy, juft as I wilh you ; and next to
that, I wifh you all with me.
Next to God, is a good man ; next in dignity, and
siext in value. Mmulftl eum paullo minus ab angelis.
If therefore I wifh well to the good and the deferv-
ing, and defire they only mould be my companions
and correfpondents, I muft very foon and very much
think of you. I want your company, and your ex-
ample. Pray make hafte to town, fo as not again to
leave us : difcharge the load of earth that lies on you,
like one of the mountains under which, the poets fay*
the giants (the men of the earth) are whelmed : leave
earth, to the fons of the earth, your converfation is in
heaven. Which that it may be accompliflied in us
all, is the prayer of him who maketh this Ihort Ser-
mon ; value (to you) three-pence. Adieu.
Mr. Blount died in London the following Year, 1726. P.
LETTERS
TO AND FROM
THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY.
From 1717 to 1727.
LETTER I.
TO THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY.
June 2, 1717.
T HAD pleafed myfelf fooner in writing to you, but
that I have been your fucceflbr in a fit of ficknefs,
and am not yet fo much recovered, but that I have
thoughts of ufmg your a phyficians. They are as
grave perfons as any of the faculty, and (like the an-
cients) carry their own medicaments about with them.
But indeed the moderns are fuch lovers of raillery,
that nothing is grave enough to efcape them. Let
them laugh, but people will Hill have their opinions :
as they think our Doctors afies to them, we'll think
them afles to our Doctors.
I am glad you are fo much in a better ftate of
health, as to allow me to jeft about it. My concern,
when I heard of your danger, was fo very ferious, that
I almoft
3 Affes. W.
42 LETTERS TO AND
I almofl take it ill Dr. Evans fhould tell you of it, or
you mention it. I tell you fairly, if you and a few
more fuch people were to leave the world, I would
not give fixpence to ftay in it.
I am not fo much concerned as to the point whe-
ther you are to live fat or lean : moft men of wit or
honefty are ufually decreed to live very lean : fo I am
inclined to the opinion that it is decreed you mail;
however be comforted, and reflect, that you will make
the better buflo for it.
J Tis fomething particular in you, not to be fatis-
fied with fending me your own books, but to make
your acquaintance continue the frolic. Mr. Wdar-
ton * forced me to take Gorboduc, which has fmce
done me great credit with feveral people, as it has
done Dryden and Oldham fome difkindnefs : in mew-
ing there is as much difference between their Gor-
boduc
* The perfon here mentioned was my father, a Fellow of Mag-
dalen College in Oxford, and afterwards Profefibr of Poetry ;
who was an intimate friend of Mr. Digby, of whofe piety and
goodnefs of heart, he ufed to relate many inftances. Gorboduc
was the firil drama in our language that was like a regular tragedy.
It was firft exhibited in the Hall of the Temple, and afterwards
before Q._ Elizabeth, 1561. It was written by Th. Sackville,
Lord Buckhurft ; the original contriver of the Mirror of Ma-
giftrates. He was afiifted in it by Thomas, a tranflator of fome
of the Pfalms. Mr. Spence, who fucceeded my father as Profef-
for of Poetry' at Oxford, printed an edition of Gorboduc, from
this very Copy of Pope, 1736, with a dedication to his friend
Lord Middlefex ; a man of tafte, and defcendant of Lord Buck-
hurft. From this Letter of Pope it appears how little at that time
was known of our ancient poets. For a full account of Gorbu-
duc, fee the Htftory of Englifh poetry, vol. 3. page 536, by my
brother Mr. Thomas Wdarton.
FROM MR. DIGBY. 43
boduc and this, as between Queen Anne and King
George. It is truly a fcandal, that men mould write
with contempt of a piece which they never once faw t
as thofe two Poets did, who were ignorant even of the
fex, as well as fenfe, of Gorboduc *.
Adieu ! I am going to forget you : this minute you
took up all my mind ; the next I mall think of no-
thing but the reconciliation with Agamemnon, and
the recovery of Brifeis. I mall be Achilles's humble
fervant thefe two months (with the good leave of all
my friends). I have no ambition fo ftrong at prefent,
as that noble one of Sir Salathiel Lovel, recorder of
London, to furnifh out a decent and plentiful execu-
tion of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be ex-
prefled how heartily I wifh the death of all Homer's
heroes, one after another. The Lord preferve me in
the day of battle, which is juft approaching ! Join in
your prayers for me, and know me to be always
Your, etc.
* I have been informed by Lord Macartney, that he had feen
a Letter from this Lord Treafurer Buckhurftto Queen Elizabeth
reprefenting the great inconvenience and diftance of his houfe at
Buckhurft, forty miles from London, through ftrange, uncouth
ways, and requefting a grant of Knowle, as being nearer town,
and confequently more convenient to him for the duty of his office.
So little communication was there, from place to place at that
time.
44 LETTERS TO AND
LETTER II.
London, March 31, 1718.
npo convince you how little pain I give myfejf in
correfponding with men of good-nature and
good underflanding, you fee I omit to anfwer your
letters till a time, when another man would be
amamed to own he had received them. If therefore
you are ever moved on my account by that fpirit,
which I take to be as familiar to you as a quotidian
ague, I mean the fpirit of goodnefs, pray never flint
it, in any fear of obliging me to a civility beyond my
natural inclination. I dare truft you, Sir, not only
with my folly when I write, but with my negligence
when I do not ; and expeft equally your pardon for
either.
If I knew how to entertain you through the reft of
this paper, it mould be fpotted and diverfified with
conceits all over : you mould be put out of breath
with laughter at each fentence, and paufe at each pe-