go if any sent me, which was much to the purpose, Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon; His place of rest, and Providence his guide.† * Pope was called upon, and examined before the House of Lords, on the point above referred to. + He repeated these lines to some of the upper scholars of Westminster school, who went to visit him in the Tower. Warton. LETTER XXII. TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. April 20, 1723. Ir is not possible to express what I think,* and what I feel; only this, that I have thought and felt for nothing but you, for some time past: and shall think of nothing so long for the time to come. The greatest comfort I had was an intention (which I would have made practicable) to have attended you in your journey, to which I had brought that person to consent, who only could have hindered me, by a tie which, though it may be more tender, I do not think more strong, than that of friendship. But I fear there will be no * Whatever our author's opinion might be, it is now but too manifest, from the curious collection of the bishop's letters, published by Mr. J. Nichols, 1783, in three vols. 8vo. and enlarged to 5 vols. in 1789, particularly in pages 148 and 167 of vol. i. that he was engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. In these volumes are many entertaining letters to M. Thiriot, the intimate friend of Voltaire, in the last edition of whose works are above a hundred letters to this M. Thiriot, who was allowed to dine with Voltaire every day, during his imprisonment in the Bastile, for six months, 1725: just before Voltaire came to England, where he was so well received, and got a very large and liberal subscription to his Henriade, and lived much with Lord Peterborough and Lord Bolingbroke. I will take occasion to add, that Thiriot was in correspondence for thirty years with the great king of Prussia, but never received from that monarch any thing but compliments. In one of these letters, Atterbury observes to Thiriot, that the Abbé du Bos, in his Reflections on Poetry and Painting, furnished Voltaire with the hint of his poem on the Ligue. Vol. i. p. 179. Warton. + Pope's mother. Bowles. way left me to tell you this great truth, that I remember you, that I love you, that I am grateful to you, that I entirely esteem and value you: no way but that one, which needs no open warrant to authorize it, or secret conveyance to secure it; which no bills can preclude, and no kings prevent; a way that can reach to any part of the world where you may be, where the very whisper or even the wish of a friend must not be heard, or even suspected. By this way I dare tell my esteem and affection of you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their sons, may hear of it. You prove yourself, my lord, to know me for the friend I am; in judging that the manner of your defence, and your reputation by it, is a point of the highest concern to me and assuring me, it shall be such, that none of your friends shall blush for you. Let me further prompt you to do yourself the best and most lasting justice; the instruments of your fame to posterity will be in your own hands. May it not be, that Providence has appointed you to some great and useful work, and calls you to it this severe way? You may more eminently and more effectually serve the public even now, than in the stations you have so honourably filled. Think of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon.* Is it not the latter, the disgraced part of Clarendon indeed wrote his best works in his banishment; but the best of Bacon's were written before his disgrace; and the best of Cicero's after his return from exile. Warburton. their lives, which you most envy, and which you would choose to have lived? I am tenderly sensible of the wish you express, that no part of your misfortune may pursue me. But, God knows, I am every day less and less fond of my native country, (so torn as it is by party-rage,) and begin to consider a friend in exile as a friend in death; one gone before, where I am not unwilling nor unprepared to follow after; and where (however various or uncertain the roads and voyages of another world may be) I cannot but entertain a pleasing hope that we may meet again. I faithfully assure you, that in the mean time there is no one, living or dead, of whom I shall think oftener or better than of you. I shall look upon you as in a state between both, in which you will have from me all the passions and warm wishes that can attend the living, and all the respect and tender sense of loss, that we feel for the dead. And I shall ever depend upon your constant friendship, kind memory, and good offices, though I were never to see or hear the effects of them: like the trust we have in benevolent spirits, who, though we never see or hear them, we think, are constantly serving us, and praying for us. Whenever I am wishing to write to you, I shall conclude you are intentionally doing so to me. And every time that I think of you, I will believe you are thinking of me. I never shall suffer to be forgotten (nay, to be but faintly remembered) the honour, the pleasure, the pride I must ever have, in reflecting how frequently you have delighted me, how kindly you have distinguished me, how cordially you have advised me! In conversation, in study, I shall always want you, and wish for you; in my most lively and in my most thoughtful hours I shall equally bear about me the impressions of you; and perhaps it will not be in this life only, that I shall have cause to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester. LETTER XXIII. TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. May 17, 1723. ONCE more I write to you as I promised,* and this once, I fear, will be the last! The curtain will There is an anecdote, so uncommon and remarkable, lately mentioned in Dr. Maty's Memoirs of the Earl of Chesterfield, and which he gives in the very words of that celebrated nobleman, that I cannot forbear repeating it in this place: "I went," said Lord Chesterfield, "to Mr. Pope, one morning at Twickenham, and found a large folio Bible, with gilt clasps, lying before him upon his table; and, as I knew his way of thinking upon that book, I asked him, jocosely, if he was going to write an answer to it? It is a present, said he, or rather a legacy, from my old friend, the Bishop of Rochester. I went to take my leave of him yesterday in the Tower, where I saw this Bible upon his table. After the first compliments, the bishop said to me, "My friend Pope, considering your infirmities, and my age and exile, it is not likely that we should ever meet again; and therefore I give you this legacy to remember me by it."-" Does your lordship abide by it yourself?"--" I do."-" If you do, my lord, it is |