their thanksgiving songs for the new habitations I have made them: my building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the passenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he inquires what house is falling, or what church is rising? So little taste have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take, in reflecting on their streams', my Tuscan porticos, or Ionic pilasters. But (to descend from all this pomp of style) the best account of what I am building is, that it will afford me a few pleasant rooms for such a friend as yourself, or a cool situation for an hour or two for Lady Scudamore, when she will do me the honour (at this public house on the road) to drink her own cyder 2. The moment I am writing this, I am surprised with the account of the death of a friend of mine; which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere jest! Buildings, gardens, writings, pleasures, works of whatever stuff man can raise! None of them (God knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mortal, or of satisfying a soul that is immortal! Dear Sir, I am, &c. In the British Museum, the various designs and elevations, by his own hand, on the backs of letters, may be seen.-. -Bowles. 2 The name Scudamore is well known in the annals of Cyder; an excellent apple being still called by that name, which is mentioned with due honour in Philips's poem. This may appear insignificant; but it illustrates Pope's meaning, which every one may not understand.Bowles. 3 The death, probably, of Sir Samuel Garth.—Boules. LETTER V. FROM MR. DIGBY. May 21, 1720. YOUR letter, which I had two posts ago, was very medicinal to me; and I heartily thank you for the relief it gave me. I was sick of the thoughts of my not having in all this time given you any testimony of the affection I owe you, and which I as constantly indeed feel as I think of you. This indeed was a troublesome ill to me, till, after reading your letter, I found it was a most idle weak imagination to think I could so offend you. Of all the impressions you have made upon me, I never received any with greater joy than this of your abundant good-nature, which bids me be assured of some share of your affections. I had many other pleasures from your letter; that your mother remembers me, is a very sincere joy to me: I cannot but reflect how alike you are; from the time you do any one a favour, you think yourselves obliged as those that have received one. This is indeed an old-fashioned respect, hardly to be found out of your house. I have great hopes, however, to see many old-fashioned virtues revive, since you have made our age in love with Homer; I heartily wish you, who are as good a citizen as a poet, the joy of seeing a reformation from your works. I am in doubt whether I should congratulate your having finished Homer, while the two essays you mention are not completed; but if you expect no great trouble from finishing these, I heartily rejoice with you. I have some faint notion of the beauties of Twickenham from what I here see round me. The verdure of showers is poured upon every tree and field about us; the gardens unfold variety of colours to the eye every morning; the hedges' breath is beyond all perfume, and the song of birds we hear as well as you. But though I hear and see all this, yet I think they would delight me more if you was here. I found the want of these at Twickenham while I was there with you, by which I guess what an increase of charms it must now have. How kind is it in you to wish me there, and how unfortunate are my circumstances that allow me not to visit you! If I see you, I must leave my father alone, and this uneasy thought would disappoint all my proposed pleasures; the same circumstances will prevent my prospect of many happy hours with you in Lord Bathurst's wood, and I fear of seeing you till winter, unless Lady Scudamore comes to Sherborne, in which case I shall press you to see Dorsetshire, as you proposed. May you have a long enjoyment of your new favourite portico! Your, &c. LETTER VI. FROM MR. DIGBY. Sherborne, July 9, 1720. THE London language and conversation is, I find, quite changed since I left it, though it is not above three or four months ago. No violent change in the natural world ever astonished a philosopher so much as this does me. I hope this will calm all party rage, and introduce more humanity than has of late obtained in conversation. All scandal will sure be laid aside, for there can be no such disease any more as spleen in this new golden age. I am pleased with the thoughts of seeing nothing but a general good humour when I come up to town; I rejoice in the universal riches I hear of, in the thought of their having this effect. They tell me, you was soon content; and that you cared not for such an increase as others wished you. By this account I judge you the richest man in the South-Sea, and congratulate you accordingly. I can wish you only an increase of health, for of riches and fame you have enough. Your, &c. LETTER VII. TO MR. DIGBY. July 20, 1720. YOUR kind desire to know the state of my health had not been unsatisfied so long, had not that ill state been the impediment. Nor should I have seemed an unconcerned party in the joys of your family, which I heard of from Lady Scudamore, whose short échantillon of a letter (of a quarter of a page) I value as the short glimpse of a vision afforded to some devout hermit; for it includes (as those revelations do) a promise of a better life in the Elysian groves of Cirencester, whither, I could say almost in the style of a sermon, the Lord bring us all, &c. Thither may we tend, by various ways, to one blissful bower: thither may health, peace, and good humour wait upon us as associates; thither may whole cargoes of nectar (liquor of life and longevity!) by mortals called spa-water, be conveyed; and there (as Milton has it) may we, like the deities, On flow'rs repos'd, and with fresh garlands crown'd, When I speak of garlands, I should not forget the green vestments and scarfs, which your sisters promised to make for this purpose. I expect you too in green, with a hunting-horn by your side and a green hat, the model of which you may take from Osborne's description of King James the First. What words, what numbers, what oratory, or what poetry, can suffice to express how infinitely I esteem, value, love, and desire you all, above all the great ones of this part of the world; above all the Jews, jobbers, bubblers, subscribers, projectors, directors, governors, treasurers, &c. &c. &c. in sæcula sæculorum. Turn your eyes and attention from this miserable mercenary period; and turn yourself, in a just contempt of these sons of Mammon, to the contemplation of books, gardens, and marriage; in which I now leave you, and return (wretch that I am) to water-gruel and Palladio. I am, &c. LETTER VIII. FROM MR. DIGBY. Sherborne, July 30. I CONGRATULATE you, dear Sir, on the return of the Golden Age; for sure this must be such, in which money is showered down in such abundance upon us. I hope this overflowing will produce great and good fruits, and bring back the figurative moral Golden Age to us. I have some omens to induce me to believe it may; for when the muses delight to be near a court, when I find you frequently with a firstminister, I cannot but expect from such an intimacy an encouragement and revival of the polite arts. I know, you desire to bring them into honour, above the golden image which is set up and worshipped; and, if you cannot effect it, adieu to all such hopes. You seem to intimate in yours another face of things from this inundation of wealth, as if beauty, wit, and valour would no more engage our passions in the pleasurable pursuit of them, though assisted by this increase if so, and if monsters only as various as those 4 Written during the delusion of the famous South-sea scheme.— Warton. |