be drawn between my friend and me, and nothing left but to wish you a long good-night. May you enjoy a Essay on the Works of Pope. Mine will add nothing to the applause which your writings have received from readers of taste and judgment. But the design of this letter is not to pay you a compliment. You need it not and I have something to communicate to you, which I am sure you will be better pleased with. "In quoting a certain uncommon anecdote,' respecting Bishop Atterbury, from Dr. Maty's Memoirs of Lord Chesterfield, you very candidly acknowledge that it ought not to be credited too hastily. When I first read it in the work from whence you have extracted it, I was much startled at it but recollecting from what source it issued, I was led to suspect its truth. The story is a very insidious one; and perfectly in Lord Chesterfield's manner!—It is airy, and gay, and arch: but no disguise can cover an infidel's malignity. I would not judge hastily of any man's motives: nor call the veracity of any man in question without the clearest evidence. But it is on the clearest evidence, and with the fullest conviction, that I scruple not to pronounce this story, concerning Bishop Atterbury's infidelity, to be groundless. 66 The anecdote relates, that this remarkable conversation between Atterbury and Pope took place but a few days before the bishop went into exile; whereas it appears from a letter dated nine months before this event, that the bishop had, with equal piety and generosity, interested himself so far in the spiritual welfare of his friend Mr. Pope, as to recommend to him the study of the Holy Scriptures; and softening his zeal by his urbanity, had so won on the esteem and affection of Pope, as to draw from him the most grateful and liberal acknowledgments. The letter I refer to is the 19th, of the collection of those between Atterbury and Pope. At the conclusion is the following very remarkable passage: I ought first,' says Mr. Pope, to prepare my mind for a better knowledge, even of good profane writers, especially the moralists, &c. before I can be worthy of tasting that supreme of books, and sublime of all writings; in which, as in all the intermediate ones, you may, if your friendship and charity towards me continue so far, be the best guide to Your, &c.' "This letter bears date July 27, 1722. The bishop did not go into exile till nearly three quarters of a year afterwards. The last letter of Pope to that bishop previous to his exile, is dated April 20, 1723. It must have been about this time that Pope paid him a visit in the Tower: but whether such a conversation took place as hath been pretended, may be safely, for the bishop's credit, submitted to the determination of every man of common sense, after reading the above extract. "I communicated these hints last winter to my very esteemed friend Mr. Moore, one of the canons of the church of Exeter, and he wished me to communicate them to the public, in order to check the insolence of certain gentlemen, who, arrogating all the good sense in the world to themselves, would insinuate that a man of genius, if he professes to be a Christian, must be a hypocrite. I had an intention of complying with Mr. Moore's request; but a variety of other engagements put it quite out of my head, till the remembrance was recalled by your publication. I would not presume to dictate to you: your better judgment will decide whether it would be proper for you to take notice of those hints, and to mould them into a form that may be worthy of the public eye, in the next edition of your ingenious essay. My motive in thus simply offering them to your notice, arose from an honest wish to remove unmerited obloquy from the dead. ["I state of repose in this life, not unlike that sleep of the soul which some have believed is to succeed it, where we lie utterly forgetful of that world from which we are gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go! If you retain any memory of the past, let it only image to you what has pleased you best; sometimes present a dream of an absent friend, or bring you back an agreeable conversation. But upon the whole, I hope you will think less of the time past than of the future; "I should sincerely rejoice if it was in my power to remove, with equal ease and success, the cloud which, in some other respects, still obscures the lustre of the bishop's memory. 66 I have the honour to be, with great esteem, "Your very humble Servant, "S. BADCOCK." Warton. This letter, from that unfortunate and learned man, S. Badcock, sufficiently vindicates the bishop's fame, respecting Lord Chesterfield's shallow and unfeeling reflections; and it ought to teach us, how little reason we have to rely (particularly in times of party violence) on stories which may be easily fabricated, but not so easily disproved, against any character. When the good name of a respectable individual is concerned, no "ipse dixit" ought to have the least weight, unless it is strengthened and confirmed by more unequivocal testimonies. It gives me pleasure, that I am enabled, through the kindness of Parry Okeden, Esq. to present to the public the inscription written in the Bible given by Atterbury in the Tower to Pope. Pope presented this Bible to his friend Ralph Allen, of Prior Park. It is now in the possession of the Dowager Lady Hawarden, to whose late husband it descended on his marriage with a co-heiress of Mr. Allen. In the blank leaf at the beginning is the following inscription in the handwriting of Pope : Mar. 30, 1739. Franciscus Episcopus Roffensis, Vir admodum venerandus et amicissimus, A. Pope, Radulpho Allen, viro de se Bowles. The imputations on the religious tenets of Atterbury and Pope, to which the anecdote of Dr. Maty has given rise, have been particularly noticed and considered in the Life of Pope prefixed to the present edition, chap. v. as the former has been less kind to you than the latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the world your studies; they will tend to the benefit of men against whom you can have no complaint, I mean of all posterity: and perhaps, at your time of life, nothing else is worth your care. What is every year of a wise man's life but a censure or critic on the past? Those whose date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it: the boy despises the infant, the man the boy, the philosopher both, and the Christian all. You may now begin to think your manhood was too much a puerility; and you will never suffer your age to be but a second infancy. The toys and baubles of your childhood are hardly now more below you, than those toys of our riper and of our declining years, the drums and rattles of ambition, and the dirt and bubbles of avarice. At this time, when you are cut off from a little society, and made a citizen of the world at large, you should bend your talents not to serve a party or a few, but all mankind. Your genius should mount above that mist in which its participation and neighbourhood with earth long involved it; to shine abroad and to heaven, ought to be the business and the glory of your present situation. Remember it was at such a time, that the greatest lights of antiquity dazzled and blazed the most, in their retreat, in their exile, or in their death. But why do I talk of dazzling or blazing? it was then that they did good, that they gave light, and that they became guides to mankind. Those aims alone are worthy of spirits truly great, and such I therefore hope will be yours. Resentment indeed may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinguished in the noblest minds; but revenge never will harbour there. Higher principles than those of the first, and better principles than those of the latter, will infallibly influence men, whose thoughts and whose hearts are enlarged, and cause them to prefer the whole to any part of mankind, especially to so small a part as one's single self. Believe me, my Lord, I look upon you as a spirit entered into another life', as one just upon the edge of immortality; where the passions and affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to despise all little views, and all mean retrospects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and therefore look forward, and make (as you can) the world look after you. But take care that it be not with pity, but with esteem and admiration. I am with the greatest sincerity, and passion for your fame as well as happiness, Your, &c. LETTER XXIV. FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. Paris, Nov. 23, 1731. You will wonder to see me in print; but how could I avoid it? The dead and the living, my friends and my foes, at home and abroad, called upon me to say something; and the reputation of an History 2 which I and all the world value, must have suffered, had I continued silent. I have printed it here, in hopes that somebody may venture to reprint it in England, notwithstanding those two frightening words at the close 1 The bishop of Rochester went into exile the month following, and continued in it till his death, which happened at Paris, on the fifteenth day of February in the year 1732.-Pope. 2 E. of Clarendon's.-Warburton. Dr. John Burton, Fellow of Eton College, published a complete vindication of the authenticity of this invaluable History of Clarendon; a history written with almost unparalleled dignity of style and manner; though perhaps, in some instances, leaning to a partiality for the character of his unfortunate, but unwise master. It has been very lately proved, that there were some omissions made in the Oxford edition of this history.-Warton. of it. Whether that happens or not, it is fit you should have a sight of it, who, I know, will read it with some degree of satisfaction, as it is mine, though it should have (as it really has) nothing else to recommend it. Such as it is, Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto; for that may well be the case, considering that within a few months I am entering into my seventieth year after which, even the healthy and the happy cannot much depend upon life, and will not, if they are wise, much desire it. Whenever I go, you will lose a friend who loves and values you extremely, if in my circumstances I can be said to be lost to any one, when dead, more than I am already whilst living. I expected to have heard from you by Mr. Morice, and wondered a little that I did not; but he owns himself in a fault, for not giving you due notice of his motions. It was not amiss that you forbore writing, on a head wherein I promised more than I was able to perform. Disgraced men fancy sometimes that they preserve an influence, where, when they endeavour to exert it, they soon see their mistake. I did so, my good friend, and acknowledge it under my hand. You sounded the coast, and found out my error, it seems, before I was aware of it: but enough on this subject. What are they doing in England to the honour of letters and particularly what are you doing? Ipse quid audes? Quæ circumvolitas agilis Thyma? Do you pursue the moral plan you marked out, and seemed sixteen months ago1 so intent upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I die, and are you to enjoy the reputation of it while you live? Or do you rather choose to leave the marks of your friendship, like the legacies of a will, 3 The Bishop's name set to his Vindication of Bishop Smalridge, Dr. Aldrich, and himself, from the scandalous reflections of Oldmixon, relating to the publication of Lord Clarendon's History. Paris, 1731, 4to. since reprinted in England.-Pope. 4 So that the plan for the Essay on Man was laid 1729.-Warton. |