fate; and tends only to endear such a character as I take yours to be. In the better discovery, and fuller conviction of which, I have a strong opinion I shall grow more and more happy the longer I live your acquaintance, and (if you will indulge me in so much pleasure) Your faithful friend, and most obliged servant, A. POPE. MADAM, LETTER II. Twitenham, Nov. 5. THOUGH I am extremely obliged by your agreeable letter, I will avoid all mention of the pleasure you give me, that we may have no more words about compliments; which I have often observed people talk themselves into, while they endeavour to talk themselves out of. It is no more the diet of friendship and esteem, than a few thin wafers and marmalade were of so hearty a stomach as Sancho's. In a word, I am very proud of my new relation, and like Parnassus much the better, since I found I had so good a neighbour there. Mrs. H., who lives at court, shall teach two country-folks sincerity; and when I am so happy as to meet you, she shall settle the proportions of that regard or good-nature, which she can allow you to spare me, from a heart which is so much her own as yours is. That lady is the most trusty of friends, if the imitation of Shakespear be yours; for she made me give my opinion of it with assurance it was none of Mrs. ***. I honestly liked and praised it, whosesoever it was; there is in it a sensible melancholy, and too true a picture of human life; so true a one, that I can scarce wish the verses yours at the expense of your thinking that way, so early. I rather wish you may love the town (which the author of those lines cannot immoderately do) these many years. It is time enough to like, or affect to like, the country, when one is out of love with all but oneself, and therefore studies to become agreeable or easy to oneself. Retiring into oneself is generally the pis-aller of mankind. Would you have me describe my solitude and grotto to you? What if, after a long and painted description of them in verse (which the writer I have just been speaking of could better make, if I can guess by that line, No noise but water, ever friend to thought), what, if it ended thus ? What are the falling rills, the pendant shades, If these lines want poetry, they do not want sense. of them! The book you mention, Bruyere's Characters, will make any one know the world; and I believe at the same time despise it, which is a sign it will make one know it thoroughly. It is certainly the proof of a master-hand, that can give such striking likenesses, in such slight sketches, and in so few strokes on each subject. In answer to your question about Shakespear, the book is a quarter printed, and the number of emendations very great. I have never indulged my own conjectures, but kept merely to such amendments as are authorised by old editions, in the author's lifetime but I think it will be a year at least before the whole work can be finished. In reply to your very handsome (I wish it were a very true) compliment upon this head, I only desire you to observe, by what natural, gentle degrees I have sunk to the humble thing I now am: first, from a pretending poet to a critic; then, to a low translator; lastly, to a mere publisher. I am apprehensive I shall be nothing that is of any value long, except, Madam, Your most obliged, and most faithful humble servant, I long for your return to town; a place I am unfit for, but shall not be long out of, as soon as I know I may be permitted to wait on you there. MADAM, LETTER III. Thursday night. It was an agreeable surprize to me, to hear of your settlement in town. I lie at my Lord Peterborough's in Bolton-street, where any commands of yours will reach me to-morrow, only on Saturday evening I am pre-engaged. If Mrs. H. be to be engaged (and if she is by any creature, it is by you), I hope she will join us. I am, with great truth, Madam, Your most faithful friend, and obliged servant, A. POPE. MADAM, LETTER IV. I COULD not play the impertinent so far as to write to you, till I was encouraged to it by a piece of news Mrs. H., tells me, which ought to be the most agreeable in the world to any author, that you are determined to write no more. It is now the time then, not for me only, but for every body, to write without fear, or wit: and I shall give you the first example here. But for this assurance, it would be every way too danger ous to correspond with a lady, whose very first sight and very first writings had such an effect upon a man used to what they call fine sights, and what they call fine writings. Yet he has been dull enough to sleep quietly, after all he has seen, and all he has read; till yours broke in upon his stupidity and indolence, and totally destroyed it. But, God be thanked, you will write no more; so I am in no danger of increasing my admiration of you one way; and as to the other, you will never (I have too much reason to fear) open these eyes again with one glimpse of you. I am told, you named lately in a letter a place called Twitenham with particular distinction. That you may not be mis-construed, and have your meaning mistaken for the future, I must acquaint you, Madam, that the name of the place where Mrs. H. is, is not Twitenham, but Richmond; which your ignorance in the geography of these parts has made you confound together. You will unthinkingly do honour to a paltry hermitage (while you speak of Twitenham) where lives a creature altogether unworthy your memory or notice, because he really wishes he had never beheld you, nor yours. You have spoiled him for a solitaire and a book, all the days of his life; and put him into such a condition, that he thinks of nothing, and inquires of nothing but after a person who has nothing to say to him, and has left him for ever without hope of ever again regarding, or pleasing, or entertaining him, much less of seeing him. He has been so mad with the idea of her, as to steal her picture, and passes whole days in sitting before it, talking to himself, and (as |