LETTERS TO AND FROM DR. ATTERBURY, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. LETTER I. THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER TO MR. POPE. December, 1716. I RETURN your preface', which I have read twice with pleasure. The modesty and good sense there is in it, must please every one that reads it. And since there is nothing that can offend, I see not why you should balance a moment about printing it— always provided, that there is nothing said there which you may have occasion to unsay hereafter: of which you yourself are the best and the only judge. This is my sincere opinion, which I give, because you ask it; and which I would not give, though asked, but to a man I value as much as I do you; being sensible how improper it is, on many accounts, for me to interpose in things of this nature, which I never understood well, and now understand somewhat less than ever I did. But I can deny you nothing: especially since you have had the goodness often, and patiently, to hear what I have said against rhyme, and in behalf of blank The general preface to Mr. Pope's Poems, first printed 1717, the year after the date of this letter.—Pope. VOL. VII. N verse 2; with little discretion, perhaps, but, I am sure, without the least prejudice: being myself equally incapable of writing well in either of those ways, and leaning therefore to neither side of the question, but as the appearance of reason inclines me. Forgive me this error, if it be one; an error of above thirty years' standing, and which therefore I shall be very loth to part with. In other matters which relate to polite writing, I shall seldom differ from you: or, if I do, shall, I hope, have the prudence to conceal my opinion. I am, as much as I ought to be, that is, as much as any man can be, Your, &c. LETTER II. FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. Feb. 18, 1717. I HOPED to find you last night at Lord Bathurst's, and came but a few minutes after you had left him. I brought Gorboduc3 with me; and Dr. Arbuthnot telling me he should see you, I deposited the book in his hands: out of which, I think, my Lord Bathurst got it before we parted, and from him therefore you are to claim it. If Gorboduc should still miss his way to you, others are to answer for it; I have delivered up my trust. I am not sorry your Alcander' is burnt; 2 It appears that Atterbury had naturally a relish for great and legitimate poetry; but he was led to doubt his own judgment, from the ascendency of Pope's fame, and the success of his versification. He had taste to point out the beauties of Milton's Samson Agonistes; but even here he had so great a deference for the opinion of Pope, that he requested him to put it into his own metre.-Bowles. It is not likely that a request, so totally contradictory to the sentiments contained in the above letter, was ever made by Atterbury to Pope. In a subsequent letter (No. XVIII.), he requests Pope to review and polish the Samson Agonistes, but not to put it into his own metre. 3 A tragedy written in the reign of Edward the Sixth (and much the best performance of that age) by Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, and Lord Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth. It was then very scarce, but lately reprinted by R. Dodsley in Pall-Mall.—Pope. 4 An Heroic Poem, writ at fifteen years old.-Pope. [Dr. had I known your intentions, I would have interceded for the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my curiosities. In truth, it is the only instance of that kind I ever met with, from a person good for any thing else, nay, for every thing else to which he is pleased to turn himself. Depend upon it, I shall see you with great pleasure at Bromley; and there is no request you can make to me, that I shall not most readily comply with. I wish you health and happiness of all sorts, and would be glad to be instrumental in any degree towards helping you to the least share of either. I am always, every where, most affectionately and faithfully Your, &c. LETTER III. FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. Bromley, Nov. 8, 1717. I HAVE nothing to say to you on that melancholy subject, with an account of which the printed papers have furnished me, but what you have already said to yourself. When you have paid the debt of tenderness you owe to the memory of a father, I doubt not but you will turn your thoughts towards improving that accident to your own ease and happiness. You have it now in your power to pursue that method of thinking and living which you like best 5. like best 5. Give me leave, if I am not a little too early in my applications of this kind, to congratulate you upon it; and to assure you that there Dr. Johnson says, this poem was burnt by the persuasion of Atterbury. The present letter implies the reverse. C.-Bowles. 5 Alluding to Pope's conforming to the church of England; a subject on which Atterbury was particularly earnest with him. is no man living who wishes you better, or would be more pleased to contribute any ways to your satisfaction or service. I return you your Milton, which, upon collation, I find to be revised and augmented in several places, as the title-page of my third edition pretends it to be. When I see you next, I will show you the several passages altered, and added by the author, beside what you have mentioned to me. I protest to you, this last perusal of him has given me such new degrees, I will not say of pleasure, but of admiration and astonishment, that I look upon the sublimity of Homer, and the majesty of Virgil, with somewhat less reverence than I used to do. I challenge you, with all your partiality, to show me in the first of these any thing equal to the Allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and justness of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring. What I looked upon as a rant of Barrow's, I now begin to think a serious truth, and could almost venture to set my hand to it: 7 Hæc quicunque legit, tantum cecinisse putabit But more of this when we meet. When I left the town the Duke of Buckingham continued so ill that he received no messages; oblige me so far as to let me • Though Addison censures the introduction of such an allegory in an epic poem, yet at the same time he highly extols the bold and sublime imagery it contains. Lord Kaimes joins with Voltaire and the French critics, as might be expected, in condemning it. They fastidiously call it nauseous and disgusting.-Warton. 7 The rant is not Barrow's, but Marvel's.-Bowles. What would Atterbury have thought of the gross misrepresentations and tasteless censures of his acquaintance Voltaire on Milton, had he lived to have read the article, Epopée, in the Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, in which he says, "Les Grecs recommandaient aux poëtes de sacrifier aux Graces; Milton a sacrifié au Diable ?" I have never met with a French writer, or a Frenchman, that had any true taste for Milton.-Warton. know how he does: at the same time I shall know how you do, and that will be a double satisfaction to LETTER IV. Your, &c. MY LORD, TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. Nov. 20, 1717. I AM truly obliged by your kind condolence on my father's death, and the desire you express that I should improve this incident to my advantage. I know your lordship's friendship to me is so extensive, that you include in that wish both my spiritual and my temporal advantage; and it is what I owe to that friendship, to open my mind unreservedly to you on this head. It is true, I have lost a parent for whom no gains I could make would be any equivalent. But that was not my only tie: I thank God another still remains (and long may it remain) of the same tender Genetrix est mihi; and excuse me if I say nature. with Euryalus, nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis. A rigid divine may call it a carnal tie, but sure it is a virtuous one. At least I am more certain that it is a duty of nature to preserve a good parent's life and happiness, than I am of any speculative point what ever. Ignaram hujus quodcunque pericli For she, my lord, would think this separation more grievous than any other, and I, for my part, know as little as poor Euryalus did, of the success of such an adventure; for an adventure it is, and no small one, in spite of the most positive divinity. Whether the change would be to my spiritual advantage, God only |