livered to them through the hands of one, who will think it sacrilege to touch upon, much less to alter, any great lines of such an original. 1 can make you no better return for your great compliment upon me (which it would be arrogance in me to shew to any other, and dangerous even to remember myself) but by telling you, that it is honour enough to reward all my studies, to find my character and reputation is part of the care of that person to whom the fame and glory of Peter Alexiowitz was committed. Sir, I am forced to make use of another hand than my own in this letter, having received a wound cross all the veins of my right hand, by which the tendons of two fingers are separated; however, it was a fine paid for my life, which has been very narrowly saved, and which may now continue me some years longer.* I w was unwilling to answer your too obliging letter (which puts much too great a stress upon • The accident here referred to happened in September, 1726, some time after which this letter appears to have been written. tention it deserves: I mean, not once, but several times over. In a word, to comply with my judg ment, will cost you no trouble, except to your modesty; which is, to act it as soon as possible. Nothing but trifles have I to object, and which were such as did not once stop me at the first reading; the spirit, design, and characters, carrying me on, without stop, check, or even intermission. You certainly are master of the art of the stage, in the manner of forming and conducting the design, which I think impossible to be mended; of that great part, and of the other, the raising the passions, I will say nothing to you, who know them so much better than myself. I would only point out a few particularities in thought or expression, as material as excepting to a button on your coat, or a loose hair. Two or three lines I have with great timorousness written on one of your blank leaves in black lead, half afraid to be legible, and not without some hope, that before you see them, they may be vanished: so may perhaps my objections, every one of them. Shall I see you soon, to tell you these nothings? Whenever I shall see you, I hope to find we can employ the time better, than I, in telling, or you, in hearing them. Or must I return you the play now? Your orders will be obeyed as soon as you give them. I really rejoice at your lady's recovery: I would have her and you think the air of Richmond is particularly good to re-establish her. Pray let Miss Hill know, I am ready to believe all the good things her own father can see in her: I can safely trust both his judgments and his affections. I am, truly, Sir, Your, &c. SIR, LETTER III. FROM MR. HILL. Petty France, Westminster, Jan. 18, 1731. I WISH the Plain Dealers may be worth a place in your library, since, being most of them mine, they are too much your due, to deserve your thanks, and too insignificant to reward your notice. I send you with them a little present, still more due to you; because it was derived from your inspiration three or four years since, in a small branch of my family, not then eleven years old. She came to me one day in my study, to return me your poems, and supply herself with some new book, as usual; being willing to try her taste, I gave her Blackmore's Prince Arthur, and told her very gravely, that it was so extraordinary a poem, that the author had been knighted for writing it. She took it, with great expectation, and shut herself up in her closet the whole remainder of that day. But next morning I was surprized to see the book upon a table, placed purposely in my way, with the paper I enclose you sticking out between the leaves of it. You have more right than I to the verses, be working nature, and creating judgment, in an infant, who could see you, but as she saw the sun, by a light of your own lending. You have them, as they came out of her hand, without the least retouching or alteration. I will remark but two things; first, that the eight concluding lines (at an age too weak for art, and speaking the language of pure truth and nature) contain a forceful example of the influence of good poetry and of bad, which might have given rest to the muse of Sir Richard Blackmore, had he lived to see and consider it. And the second remark (which I make with most pleasure) is, how natural it is in my family to love and admire you. If, after this, I should inform you that I have a gentle complaint to make to, and against you, concerning a paragraph in the notes of a late edition of the Dunciad, I fear you would think your crime too little to deserve the punishment of so long a letter, as you are doomed to, on that subject,* from, Sir, Your most humble, and A. HILL. * This observation gave rise to the controversy between Pope and Hill, which was carried on for some time with considerable warmth. and can truly say I never gave you just cause of complaint. You once mistook on a bookseller's idle report, and publicly expressed your mistake; yet you mistook a second time, that two initial letters, only, were meant of you, though every letter in the alphabet was put in the same manner: and, in truth, (except some few,) those letters were set at random, to occasion what they did occasion, the suspicion of bad and jealous writers, of which number I could never reckon Mr. Hill, and most of whose names I did not know.* Upon this mistake you were too ready to attack me, in a paper of very pretty verses, in some public journal. I should imagine the Dunciad meant you a real compliment, and so it has been thought by many, who have asked, to whom that passage made that oblique panegyric. As to the notes, I am weary of telling a great truth, which is, that I am not author of them; though I love truth so * In the Art of Sinking in Poetry Pope has a class of geniuses which he denominates FLYING fishes, "who now and then rise upon their fins, and fly out of the profund; but their wings are soon dry, and they drop down to the bottom." Amongst the initials intended as examples, we find the letters A. H. †The panegyric certainly outweighs the censure, and is indeed highly beautiful and poetical. Bowles. |