the acrimony of Juvenal, with the Horatian air of ease and serenity. It reaches heights the most elevated, without seeming to design any soaring. It is raised and familiar at once. It opposes just praise to just censure, and thereby doubles the power of either. It places the poet in a light for which nature and reason designed him, and atones all the pitiful sins of the trade; for, to a trade, and a vile one, poetry is irrecoverably sunk in this kingdom. What a pity, that our rottenness begins at the core, and is a corruption, not of persons alone, but of things! One would else strongly hope, from a ridicule so sharp, and so morally pointed, that wicked men might be laughed into something like penitence. But, alas! they are only bit by Tarantulas, who can be cured by the power of music. Not even the harp of Apollo had a charm to expel vipers that have crept into the entrails.

Go on, however, to make war, with a courage that reproaches a nation's; and live (would you could!) just as long as till the virtues your spirit would propagate, become as general as the esteem of your genius! I am, with great obligation and truth, Sir, Your most obedient,

And most affectionate Servant,

LETTER XXXV.

TO MR. HILL9.

A HILL.

SIR,

September 12, 1738.

I HAVE now little to say of your tragedy, which I return with my thanks for your indulgence to my opinion, which I see so absolutely deferred to, that I

9 Some letters of acknowledgment from Hill to Pope, for the trouble he had taken in revising the Tragedy of Caesar, are here omitted.

wish I had crossed less frequently. I cannot find another thing I think a fault in you.

But my lord thinks three things may yet be reconsidered. Brutus, on sight of the warrant signed for his death, takes at once the resolution of murdering Cæsar, as none of his father. Quere, Whether in the scene that follows between him and Cæsar, all tenderness on the side of Brutus, and all beyond the point of honour that friendship exacted, should not rather be avoided than heightened?

Another quere is, Whether it would not beget more indignation in the audience against Cassius, and more compassion for Cæsar, to show that Cassius suspected Brutus to be Cæsar's son, and therefore exacted from Brutus the oath of sparing neither father, relation, &c.?

The third thing is, Whether the efforts made by Cæsar to prevent the civil war, not only by the equal offer he made, while the matter was under debate in the senate, and which the consuls Lentulus and Marcellus refused to report to the senate, but by the message he sent to Pompey, when he was at Brundusium, to desire a meeting to settle the matter, and avoid the civil war?-Vid. Cæs. Com. de Bell. Civili, lib. 1.-The mention of these somewhere in the play might help to remove the prepossession against Cæsar.

After our little cavils (for so we will rather call minute and verbal points of criticism) we owe you the justice to extol highly what we highly approve, and you need not desire us to speak as we think it is what we have (in different ways) done all our lives, where it was to our prejudice, and cannot but do here, where it is to our honour. I only wish you a stage, actors, and an audience worthy of you and it. I have often wished to live to see the day when prologues and epilogues should be no more. I wish a great genius would break through the silly, useless formality. But at least I

would have one try, to leave the audience full of the effects of a good tragedy, without an epilogue. Let me add another hint, concerning the apparatus and circumstantials of your play, (since I have nothing left more to wish in the play itself,) that you would intitle it barely, The Tragedy of Cæsar, and give no intimation of his being a patriot; for I fear, instead of preparing the audience, it might revolt them, and put all the little critics upon carping previously at the very design and character; which would appear by degrees, and with the proper preparations, in the piece on the stage. Another thing was a thought of my lord's, that it should be printed before acting, a day or two; for the sentiments are so thick-sown, and the sense so deep sometimes, that they require more attention and thought than the hearer may be apt to give on the first representation. I am not positive, either as to his, or my thought, but submit them to your consideration.

I have nothing to add, but to lament our unhappiness, that we cannot see you personally to confirm what these letters tell you, of our real opinion of your work, esteem of its author, and wishes for your success, in this, and every thing, I am, Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER XXXVI.

TO MR. HILL.

DEAR SIR,

November 5, 1738.

THIS is quite a letter of business, and therefore excuse it; I will not mix in it a word of affection, which I have not a moment's time to express, and will not prejudice the sacred idea of friendship.

It is near a month ago that I tried to see Mr. Thomson, to know the time of his tragedy: he was not within my reach; and therefore at last I wrote to him,

and also to Mr. M.-', to let them both know the deference you paid them, and the heroic (I will not call it less) disinterestedness you expressed in regard to them. I have not yet been able to hear where they are, or any way to have an answer, further than I have learned it will be impossible for either of them to bring on their plays early (a friend of theirs telling me they are in no forwardness) till the middle or end of the winter; therefore you may have room. I wish from my soul you may get yours first, as well acted as it deserves. A better, that may eclipse it, or even worthily follow it, I hardly expect to see. But, upon this notice, I believe you may safely advance it, the sooner the better.

My Lord B.' is yet with me; more properly I yet belong to him, body as well as mind, for my mind is every where his. I would to God you had any opportunity of seeing us before we part; my house should be yours, as much of it as is not his. I believe I shall soon go with him on a little journey before he quits England. You will forgive the abrupt conclusion of this; yet it may tell you all the longest and best written letter could tell you, that I am very sincerely, Sir,

Your, &c.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XXXVII.

TO MR. HILL.

December 8, 1738.

I HAVE been confirmed by Mr. Thomson as to the retardment of his play, of which he has written but two acts. I have since seen Mr. M- who has finished his, but is very willing yours should be first brought on, in January as you propose, or after his in

VOL. VII.

1 Mallet.

2 Bolingbroke.

X

February, whichsoever may be most agreeable to you. He farther offers any assistance he can give you, in case of your own absence, as to treating with Mr. F(with whom he thinks you cannot be too careful or explicit), or attending the rehearsals for you, which he promises to undertake with all diligence, if you are not provided with another friend in that case. He has heard of some impertinence which may be apprehended from one person's refusal or unwillingness to act, and believes he can employ some proper influence to bring him to a right behaviour. These, with any other services in which you may please to employ him, he bids me assure you, it will be a high satisfaction to him to engage in.

I must express, on my own part, a real regret to be so little useful to you. I can do no more than join with Lord B. in paying due praises to so meritorious a work; our suffrage is an airy tribute, from whence no solid good redounds to you; and I find myself still more inclined to the man than the author, if I could be any way instrumental to the happiness or ease of so generous an one. I could almost wish myself a minister to patronize such a genius, and I could almost wish my lord one again, for no other reason; even though his country wants such an one, as well as his friends.

I have never once been able to see Mr. Thomson in person; when I do (and it shall be soon) he shall know how much he is obliged to you for that plan of an alteration of his tragedy, which is too good for me, with any honesty, to put upon him as my own. Believe me, sir, with great truth, and the warmest disposition to do you justice (before men and angels),

Your, &c.