put my welfare into the small number of things which you heartily wish (for a sensible person, of either sex, will never wish for many), I ought to be a happier man than I ever yet deserved to be. Upon a review of your papers, I have repented of some of the trivial alterations I had thought of, which were very few. I would rather keep them till I have the satisfaction to meet you in the winter, which I must beg earnestly to do; for hitherto methinks you are to me like a spirit of another world, a being I admire, but have no commerce with. I cannot tell but I am writing to a fairy, who has left me some favours, which I secretly enjoy, and shall think it unlucky, if not fatal, to part with. So pray do not expect your verses till further acquaintance. MADAM, LETTER VII. Twitenham, Sept. 30, 1722. No confidence is so great, as that one receives from persons one knows may be believed, and in things one is willing to believe. I have (at last) acquired this; by Mrs. H.'s repeated assurances of a thing I am unfeignedly so desirous of, as your allowing me to correspond with you. In good earnest, there is sometimes in men as well as in women, a great deal of unaffected modesty: and I was sincere all along, when I told her personally, and told you by my silence, that I feared only to seem impertinent, while perhaps I seemed negligent, to you. To tell Mrs. *** any thing like what I really thought of her, would have looked so like the common traffic of compliment, that pays only to receive; and to have told it her in distant or bashful terms, would have appeared so like coldness in my sense of good qualities, (which I cannot find out in any one, without feeling, from my nature, at the same time, a great warmth for them,) that I was quite at a loss what to write, or in what style, to you. But I am resolved, plainly to get over all objections, and faithfully to assure you, if you will help a bashful man to be past all preliminaries and forms, I am ready to treat with you for your friendship. I know (without more ado) you have a valuable soul; and wit, sense, and worth enough, to make me reckon it (provided you will permit it) one of the happinesses of my life to have been made acquainted with you. I do not know, on the other hand, what you can think of me; but this, for a beginning, I will venture to engage, that whoever takes me for a poet, or a wit, (as they call it,) takes me for a creature of less value than I am and that wherever I profess it, you shall find me a much better man, that is, a much better friend, or at least a much less faulty one, than I am a poet. That whatever zeal I may have, or whatever regard I may show, for things I truly am so pleased with as your entertaining writings, yet I shall still have more for your person, and for your health, and for your happiness. I would, with as much readiness, play the apothecary or the nurse, to mend your head-aches, as I would play the critic to improve your verses. I have seriously looked over and over those you entrusted me with; and assure you, Madam, I would as soon cheat in any other trust, as in this. I sincerely tell you, I can mend them very little, and only in trifles, not worth writing about; but will tell you every tittle when I have the happiness to see you. I am more concerned than you can reasonably believe, for the ill state of health you are at present under: but I will appeal to time, to show you how sincerely I am, (if I live long enough to prove myself what I truly am,) Madam, Your most faithful servant, I am very sick all the while I write this letter, which I hope will be an excuse for its being so scribbled. LETTER VIII. MADAM, Twitenham, Nov. 9. It happened that when I determined to answer yours, by the post that followed my receipt of it, I was prevented from the first proof I have had the happiness to give you of my warmth and readiness, in returning the epitaph, with my sincere condolements with you on that melancholy subject. But nevertheless I resolved to send you the one, though unattended by the other: I begged Mrs. H. to enclose it, that you might at least see I had not the power to delay a moment the doing what you bid me; especially when the occasion of obeying your commands was such, as must affect every admirer and well-wisher of honour and virtue in the nation. You had it in the very blots, the better to compare the places; and I can only say it was done to the best of my judgment, and to the extent of my sincerity. I do not wonder that you decline the poetical amusement I proposed to you, at this time. I know, from what little I know of your heart, enough at least to convince me, it must be too deeply concerned at the loss, not only of so great, and so near a relation, but of a good man; a loss this age can hardly ever afford to bear, and not often can sustain. Yet perhaps it is one of the best things that can be said of poetry, that it helps us to pass over the toils and troubles of this tiresome journey, our life; as horses are encouraged and spirited up, by the jingling of bells about their heads. Indeed, as to myself, I have been used to this odd cordial so long, that it has no effect upon me: but you, Madam, are in your honey-moon of poetry; you have seen only the smiles, and enjoyed the caresses of Apollo. Nothing is so pleasant to a muse as the first children of the imagination; but when once she comes to find it mere conjugal duty, and the care of her numerous progeny daily grows upon her, it is all a sour tax for past pleasure. As the Psalmist says on another occasion, the age of a muse is scarce above five and twenty all the rest is labour and sorrow. I find by experience that his own fiddle is no great pleasure to a common fiddler, after once the first good conceit of himself is lost. I long at last to be acquainted with you; and Mrs. H. tells me you shall soon be in town, and I blest with the vision I have so long desired. Pray believe I worship you as much, and send my addresses to you as often, as to any female saint in heaven: it is certain I see you as little, unless it be in my sleep; and that way too, holy hermits are visited by the saints themselves. I am, without figures and metaphors, yours: and hope you will think, I have spent all my fiction in my poetry; so that I have nothing but plain truth left for my prose; with which, I am ever, Madam, Your faithful humble servant. MADAM, LETTER IX. Five o'clock. I THINK it a full proof of that unlucky star, which upon too many occasions I have experienced, that this first, this only day that I should have owned happy beyond expectation (for I did not till yesterday hope to have seen you so soon) I must be forced not to do it. I am too sick (indeed very ill) to go out so far, and lie on a bed at my doctor's house, as a kind of force upon him to get me better with all haste. I am scarce able to see these few lines I write; to wish you health and pleasure enough not to miss me to-day, and myself patience to bear being absent from you as well as I can being ill. I am truly, Your faithful servant, MADAM, LETTER X. A. POPE. Jan. 17, 1722-3. After a very long expectation and daily hopes of the satisfaction of seeing and conversing with you, I am still deprived of it in a manner that is the most afflicting, because it is occasioned by your illness and your misfortune. I can bear my own, I assure you, much better and thus to find you lost to me, at the time that I hoped to have regained you, doubles the concern I should naturally feel in being deprived of any pleasure whatever. Mrs. H. can best express to you the concern of a friend, who esteems and pities: for she has the liberty to express it in her actions, and the satisfaction of attending on you in your indisposition. I wish sincerely your condition were not such as to debar me from telling you in person how truly I am yours. I wish I could do you any little offices of friendship, or give you any amusements, or help you to what people in your present state most want, better spirits. If reading to you, or writing to you, could contribute to entertain your hours, or to raise you to a livelier relish of life, how well should I think my time employed! indeed I should, and think it a much better end of my poor studies, than all the vanities of fame |