once saw, as those two poets did, who were ignorant even of the sex, as well as sense, of Gorboduc1.

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 Agamemnon, and the recovery of Briseïs. I shall be 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 Salathiel 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 II.

TO MR. 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

4 I have been informed by Lord Macartney, that he had seen a letter from this Lord Treasurer Buckhurst to Queen Elizabeth, representing the great inconvenience and distance of his house at Buckhurst, forty miles from London, through strange, uncouth ways, and requesting a grant of Knowle, as being nearer town, and consequently more convenient to him for the duty of his office. So little communication was there from place to place at that time.-Warton.

5 This allusion, whether in jest or earnest, is obscure. Sir Salathiel Lovel was made Recorder in 1692, and held that office until 1708, when he was promoted to be a Baron of the Exchequer. During his time, the laws against the Papists were frequently enforced. C.-Bowles.

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 my 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 There indeed we stare, and roar, and clap hands for K. 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 out-raps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain-glory.

at.

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

6 Lady Scudamore was connected with the Digbys by marriage. Frances, only daughter of Simon, fourth Lord Digby, married Sir James Scudamore, Viscount Sligo, and died 1729, leaving an only daughter, who was married first to the Duke of Beaufort, 1729, and afterwards to Charles Fitzroy Scudamore. The Lady first mentioned is the Lady Scudamore meant by Pope.-Bowles.

Cibber's play of the Nonjuror". I rejoiced the other day to see a libel on her toilet, 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 III.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

Coleshill, April 17, 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 very much concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the more afraid, imagining, since you do not fly those horrible monsters, rapine, dissimulation, and luxury, that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you cannot escape. We are here in the country in quite another world, surrounded with blessings and pleasures, without any occasion of exercising our irascible faculties; indeed we cannot boast of good-breeding and the art of life, but yet we do not live unpleasantly in primitive simplicity and good humour. The fashions of the town affect us but just like a raree-show; we have a curiosity to peep at them, and nothing more. What you call pride, prodigality, and vain-glory, we cannot find in pomp and splendour at this distance; it appears to us a fine glittering scene, which if we do not envy you, we

7 Cibber always insisted, that this comedy, founded on the admirable Tartuffe of Moliere, was the chief cause of our author's resentment against him. It met with great success on the stage.-Warton.

think you happier than we are, in your enjoying it. Whatever you may think to persuade us of the humility of virtue, and her appearing in rags amongst you, we can never believe: our uninformed minds represent her so noble to us, that we necessarily annex splendour to her and we could as soon imagine the order of things inverted, and that there is no man in the moon, as believe the contrary. I cannot forbear telling you we indeed read the spoils of Rapine as boys do the English Rogue, and hug ourselves full as much over it; yet our roses are not without thorns. Pray give me the pleasure of hearing (when you are at leisure) how soon I may expect to see the next volume of Homer.

LETTER IV.

I am, &c.

TO MR. DIGBY.

May 1, 1720.

You will think me very full of myself, when after long silence (which however, to say truth, has rather been employed to contemplate of you, than to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I find it is in the finishing a book, as in concluding a session of Parliament, one always thinks it will be very soon, and finds it very late. There are many unlooked-for incidents to retard the clearing any public account, and so I see it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great ministers, with undertaking too much for one man; and with a desire of doing more than was expected from me, have done less than I ought.

For having designed four very laborious and uncommon sort of Indexes to Homer, I am forced, for want of time, to publish two only: the design of which you will own to be pretty, though far from being fully executed. I have also been obliged to

leave unfinished in my desk the heads of two Essays, one on the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they must wait for future editions, or perish: and (one way or other, no great matter which) dabit Deus his quoque finem. I think of you every day, I assure you, even without such good memorials of you as your sisters, with whom I sometimes talk of you, and find it one of the most agreeable of all subjects to them. My Lord Digby must be perpetually remembered by all who ever knew him, or knew his children. There needs no more than acquaintance with your family, to make all elder sons wish they had fathers to their lives' end.

8

I cannot touch upon the subject of filial love, without putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a sincere, hearty, old-fashioned respect for you, and constantly blames her son for not having writ to you oftener to tell you so.

I very much wish (but what signifies my wishing? My Lady Scudamore' wishes, your sisters wish) that you were with us, to compare the beautiful contrast this season affords us, of the town and the country. No ideas you could form in the winter can make you imagine what Twickenham is (and what your friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) in this warmer season. Our river glitters beneath an unclouded sun, at the same time that its banks retain the verdure of showers; our gardens are offering their first nosegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying

The elder son dying in 1717, Robert was now the heir-apparent to the title and property.-Bowles.

9 Lady Scudamore, I apprehend, had a house at Twickenham, where Digby's sisters sometimes resided.-Bowles.