"am yours, and beg you to continue mine." Let me not be ignorant (you can prevent my being so of any thing, but first and principally) of your health and well being and depend on my sense of all the kindness over and above all the justice you shall ever do me.

I never read a thing with more pleasure than an additional sheet to "Jervas's Preface to Don Quixote. Before I got over two paragraphs I cried out, Aut Erasmus aut Diabolus! I knew you as certainly as the ancients did the gods by the first pace and the very gait. I have not a moment to express myself in, but could not omit this which delighted me so greatly.

My law-suit with L. is at an end. — Adieu ! Believe no man can be more yours. Call me by any title you will, but a Doctor of Oxford; Sit tibi cura mei, sit tibi cura tui.

LETTER XVIII.

January 18, 1742.

But

I AM forced to grow every day more laconic in my letters, for my eyesight grows every day shorter and dimmer. Forgive me then that I answer you summarily. I can even less bear an equal part in a correspondence than in a conversation with you. be assured once for all, the more I read of you, as the more I hear from you, the better I am instructed and pleased. And this misfortune of my own dulness, and my own absence, only quickens my ardent wish that some good fortune would draw you nearer, and enable me to enjoy both, for a greater part of our lives in this neighbourhood; and in such a situation, as might make more beneficial friends, than I, esteem and enjoy you equally.➡ I have again heard form Lord * *

"On the origin of the books of Chivalry.

of de

and another hand, that the Lord I writ to you clares an intention to serve you. My answer (which they related to him) was, that he would be sure of your acquaintance for life if once he served, or obliged you; but that, I was certain, you would never trouble him with your expectation, though he would never get rid of your gratitude. - Dear Sir, adieu, and let me be sometimes certified of your health. My own is as usual; and my affection the same, always yours.

LETTER XIX.

Twitenham, March 24, 1743. the very few I now desire to have my friends, merely, Si valeas, valeo. 'Tis in effect all I say but it is very literally true, for I place all that makes my life desirable in their welfare. I may truly affirm, that vanity or interest have not the least share in any friendship I have; or cause me now to cultivate that of any one man by any one letter. But if any motive should draw me to flatter a great man, it would be to save the friend I would have him serve from doing it. Rather than lay a deserving person under the necessity of it, I would hazard my own character and keep his in dignity. Though, in truth, I live in a time when no measures of conduct influence the success of one's applications, and the best thing to trust to is chance and opportunity.

I WRITE to you amongst

intrinsically; but,

I only mean to tell you, I am wholly yours, how few words soever I make of it. A greater pleasure to me is, that I chanced to make Mr. Allen so, who is not only worth more than I foresee, will be effectually more a comfort and glory to you every year you live. any man less truly great than an small.

? Granville.

My confidence in honest one is but

I have lived much by myself of late, partly through ill health, and partly to amuse myself with little improvements in my garden and house, to which possibly I shall (if I live) be soon more confined. When the Dunciad may be published, I know not. I am more desirous of carrying on the best, that is your edition of the rest of the Epistles and Essay on Criticism, etc. I know it is there I shall be seen most to advantage. But I insist on one condition, that you never think of this when you can employ yourself in finishing that noble work of the Divine Legation (which is what, above all, iterum iterumque monebo) or any other useful scheme of your own. It would be a satisfaction to me at present only to hear that you have supported your health among these epidemical disorders, which, though not mortal to any of my friends, have afflicted almost every one,

LETTER XX.

June 5.

I WISH that instead of writing to you once in two months, I could do you some service as often; for I am arrived to an age when I am as sparing of words, as most old men are of money, though I daily find less occasion for any. But I live in a time when benefits are not in the power of an honest man to bestow; nor indeed of an honest man to receive, considering on what terms they are generally to be had. It is certain you have a full right to any I could do you, who not only monthly, but weekly of late, have loaded me with favours of that kind, which are most acceptable to veteran authors; those garlands which a commentator weaves to hang about his poet, and which are flowers both of his own gathering and painting too; not blossoms springing from the dry author.

It is very unreasonable after this, to give you a second trouble in revising the Essay on Homer. But I look upon you as one sworn to suffer no errors in me: and though the common way with a commentator be to erect them into beauties, the best office of a critic is to correct and amend them. There being a new edition coming out of Homer, I would willingly render it a little less defective, and the bookseller will not allow me time to do so myself.

Lord B. returns to France very speedily, and it is possible I may go for three weeks or a month to Mr. Allen's in the Summer; of which I will not fail to advertise you, if it suits your conveniency to be there and drink the waters more beneficially.

Forgive my scribbling so hastily and so ill. My eyes are at least as bad as my head, and it is with my heart only that I can pretend to be, to any real purpose,

Your, etc,

LETTER XXI.

July 18. YOU may well expect letters from me of thanks : but the kind attention you shew to every thing that concerns me is so manifest, and so repeated, that you cannot but tell yourself how necessarily I must pay them in my heart, which makes it almost impertinent to say so. Your alterations to the Preface and Essay p are just; and none more obliging to me than where you prove your concern, that my notions in my first writings should not be repugnant to those in my last. And you will have the charity to think, when I was then in an error, it was not so much that I thought wrong or perversely, as that I had not thought sufficiently. What I could correct in the

P Prefixed to his Homer's Iliad.

dissipated life I am forced to lead here, I have: anď some there are which still want your help to be made as they should be. - Mr. Allen depends on you at the end of the next month, or in September, and I will join him as soon as I can return from the other party; I believe not till September at soonest. You will pardon me (dear Sir) for writing to you but just like an attorney or agent. I am more concerned for your finances than your fame; because the first, I fear, you will never be concerned about yourself; the second is secure to you already, and (whether you will or not) will follow you.

I have never said one word to you of the public.. I have known the greater world too long to be very sanguine. But accidents and occasions may do what virtue would not; and God send they may! Adieu. Whatever becomes of public virtue, let us preserve our own poor share of the private. Be affured, if I have any, I am with a true sense of your merit and friendship, etc.

LETTER XXII.

for yours,

October 7. I HEARTILY thank you from which I learned your safe arrival. And that you found all yours in health, was a kind addition to the account; as I truly am interested in whatever is, and deserves to be dear to you, and to make a part of your happiness. I have many reasons and experiences to convince me, how much you wish health to me, as well as long life to my writings. Could you make as much a better man of me as you can make a better author, I were secure of immortality both here and hereafter by your means. The Dunciad I have ordered

His debt from the executor of Mr. Gyles.