LETTER XXXVII.

TO TERESA BLOUNT.

I TAKE it kindly whenever you command any thing of me: I shall not want the horses all day, being to have our party with Mrs. Lepell. I wish to God I were as fit to keep you company as those who love you far less. Nothing could be so bitter to a tender mind, as to displease most, where he would (and ought in gratitude) to please best. I am faithfully yours: unhappy enough to want a great deal of indulgence; but sensible I deserve it less and less from my disagreeable carriage. I am truly grateful to you for pardoning it so often, not able to know when I can overcome it, and only able to wish you could bear me better.

LETTERS

FROM

MR. POPE

ΤΟ

MRS. NEWSHAM, MR. AND MRS. KNIGHT,
AND MRS. NUGENT 2.

MADAM,

LETTER I.

TO MRS. NEWSHAM,

b

AT CHADSHUNT, WARWICKSHIRE.

Twit'nam, Dec. 21.

HAVING been long and closely confined at home

in attending a most dangerous illness of my mother, (whose life was wholly despaired of, and, through several relapses since, very precarious,) I never heard till last week what I sincerely condole with you upon. I cannot help breaking through the ceremony of the world, and writing as if I had the title of a relation to you. I thank God I am of that frame, that I can and do feel very sensibly for my friends in such cir

The reader will soon discover that these female names may be comprized in one.

Mrs. Newsham was the wife of

Newsham, Esq. of Chad

shunt in Warwickshire, and was afterwards married to John Knight, Esq. Pope corresponded with both families.

cumstances. I cannot express how much; nor will words lessen whatever you feel. I will leave this subject. When you care to hear more from me, I shall wish to write to you; and am, indeed, with all the good wishes of a friend, sincerely.

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

MADAM,

I HOPE you are so good a relation as to think it a reasonable impediment to my writing to you, (which I purposed as soon as you got into Warwick. shire,) that my mother was very ill. She is now so much better, that I begin to look with more cheerfulness on the coming part of my life: contrary to most sons, I think, of all friends, a friend of one's family is the best; they are generally the surest, for merit seldom gets the better of blood. The world of late has been so bad, that it has seemed unwilling to attribute much merit to those who love us naturally, as kindred (and above all, parents) do: the true reason of which I fear is, that we are too ready to depreciate the kindnesses we receive, to excuse our own careless, if not ungrateful, returns to them. But though our relations be obliged to be kind to us, are we therefore not obliged to be grateful to them? For my part I am so unfashionable as to think my mother the best friend I have, for she is certainly the most partial one. Therefore as she thinks the best of me, she must be the kindest to me. And I am morally certain she does that without any difficulty, or art, which it would cost the devil and all of pains for any body else to do.

In this domestic way of thinking, you will not take me too much for a complimental person, if I, seriously

and heartily, wish to know from you that Mr. Newsham is in a better state of health. I am truly sorry that you can't pass the winter here, especially when it is occassioned by such an obstacle: but I know from myself (who am like on the same account to see very little of the town this winter), that there is more true satisfaction in doing right, and in acting tenderly, than in all the vain, empty things, which the lovers of the town (the Cornishes of the world) can call pleasures. They hate the very thoughts of paradise, because it is described as a garden: and have no opinion of heaven, but as they fancy it like an opera.

hands,

I

I would not say this before Mr. Elliot, who has bought (at my instigation) the marble for the statue, upon which the Italian is now at work. I will not forget those cautions about the forehead, hair, etc. which we observed when we met on that occasion. You know that I have enough of yours in my to answer the statuary's demands for the future. have made the Latin inscription as full, and yet as short, as I possibly could. It vexes me to reflect how little I must say, and how far short all I can say is, of what I believe, and feel, on that subject; like true lovers' expressions, that vex the heart from whence they come, to find how cold and faint they must seem to others, in comparison of what inspires them inwardly in themselves: the heart glows, while the tongue faulters.

I shall try my interest with Mr. Nicols, in behalf of the young gentleman, who is so much a part of you. I had once an interest with him: and (because he is a good man) I will believe I have it still, for the same cause that I have some with you: one whom he

Edward Elliot, of Port Elliot, Esq. who married Harriet, sister of Mr. Secretary Craggs.

d Mrs. Newsham was also sister to Mr. Secretary Craggs, and it is his monument which is the subject of this and some of the fol lowing letters.

loved and respected, happened to love me, though now removed from us for ever! That will be a reason with grateful and reflecting minds, to devolve benevolencies, and continue good wishes, from generation to generation.

I am, etc.

MADAM,

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

Twitenham, July 9th. YOU would have had a very free companion and correspondent of me, and have inherited that open and unreserved behaviour, which I both learned from your brother, and practised to him: but the day that you passed at Twitnam, you did a thing that took away all my liberty, and made me a much less easy acquaintance than I hoped to have been to you. Methinks this period looks like a love-letter, to tell a lady she has taken away my liberty: but you'll understand it in a more serious sense and I assure you, I am, instead of your friend, so much your enemy for this, that I will live to be revenged of you. And in the mean time (like one that is very much intent upon revenge,) I will say not a word more about it, but seem entirely to forget it.

The Italian sculptor has not yet finished his clay model. Indeed, it is a vast disadvantage as to the likeness, not to be able to see the life. What would not you and I give that that were possible? But at last, by comparing the two other pictures and the print, (together with my own memory of the features of that friend who had often looked so kindly upon me,) he has brought it to a greater degree of resemblance than I could have thought. If you happened to come to town, I could wish you saw the model yet, before the