demn me. In a word, the malice is as great as the dulness of my calumniators: the one I forgive, the other I pity, and I despise both. Adieu; the first day I am near you I will find you out, and shew you something you will like. My best good wishes are yours, and Miss Urania's.

Your, &c.

SIR,

LETTER XXV.

FROM MR. HILL.

Jan. 16, 1733.

I

THANK you with a double pleasure for the present of your epistle, Of the Use of Riches, because it brought me a proof that you have good nature enough to remember one who must have seemed not to have deserved the distinction. But my reason for not acknowledging sooner the due sense I have of many other favours you have been so obliging as to intend me, is from an occasion I have in view of doing it very shortly.

I am sorry The Man of Ross, who is so beautifully your theme, is not, like the Thames to Sir John Denham, your example also. You will start, I make no doubt, at an accusation you are so unconscious of deserving. Yet we know ourselves too little; and I must, in spite of my friendship, join the world in its censure of this manifest defect in your conduct, who can suppose it sufficient, to shake over us, now and then, a thin sprinkling from stores so inexhaustibly rich and desirable!

I wish you an increase of happiness and of health in this and every new year; and am, Sir,

I CAN assure you, with great truth and pleasure, that I never pass a day without thinking of you and but for this, I should be ashamed to remember how long it is since I ought to have thanked you for an imitation not to be imitated. I must own, there is a spirit in the honest vivacity of that piece that charmed me to the soul. In your other writings I am pleased by the poet; I am here in love with the man.

I was lately looking among my papers, and met with the copy of some lines I sent you five or six years ago, from Newcastle, in one of my journeys to Scotland. It was loosely and negligently dressed; and designing to let it be seen in the world, I have brushed off the dust of the road, and I wish I could say, made it fit for your reception.

In a conversation a year or two since, concerning the affairs of the stage, you told me that there was a patent in the hands of one of the Davenants,

of which no use was made, and which you seemed to think it easy to procure an assignment of.

Methinks this must have been the Killigrew patent; for that which was granted to Sir William Davenant, is the patent under which Mr. Rich now acts.

I should be very much obliged to you for an information of what you know concerning this patent; you shall shortly have my reason for this curiosity in, Dear Sir, yours, &c.

A. HILL.

SIR,

LETTER XXVII.

TO MR. HILL.

Twickenham, May 22, 1733.

YOUR Our very kind letter came hither in my absence, which occasioned my delay till now in acknowledging it. Your partiality to me, both as a poet, and as a man, is great; the former I deserve not, but the latter I will never forfeit. It would be wronging your modesty to say much of the verses you inclose, but it would be wronging sense and poetry, not to say they are fine ones, and such as I could not forget, having once seen them.

I have almost forgot what I told you of the patent; but at the time I told it, I could not well be mistaken, having just then had the account from Mr. Davenant the envoy: indeed I fancy it was only of his ancestor's patent that he spoke

(unless Sir William Davenant bought up Killigrew's). I know no way of coming to the knowledge of this affair, Mr. Davenant being now abroad, and I know not where. But if you would have me write about it, I will learn his direction.

I am at all times glad to hear of you, on any occasion. I would willingly wait on you in the Park, if I knew your times. I have called twice or thrice there in vain, without being heard. I guessed you were in the country. My sincere good wishes attend you; and your agreeable family, as far as I have seen of it, I cannot but wish well to. I am, dear Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER XXVIII.

TO MR. POPE.

SIR,

Nov. 7, 1733.

THOUGH I have, really, no skill in the French, and am (perhaps, for that reason) not over fond of the language, yet I read it with pleasure, in respect to the writers of that nation; and have seldom been more strongly delighted, than with the tragedy of Zaire.

I had seen nothing of M. Voltaire's before, except the Henriade; and whether it was from my own want of taste, or the poem's want of fire, I found it too cold for an epic spirit; so conceived

but a moderate opinion as to the dramatic attempts of the same author. But genius being limited, we act too rash and unreasonable a part, when we judge after so general a manner. Having been agreeably disappointed in Zaire, it was due, as an atonement, that I should contribute to widen his applause, whom I had thought of too narrowly.

I have, therefore, made this tragedy speak English, and shall bring it on the stage in a month or two; where, though I have no interest in its success, I should be vexed to have it miscarry; because it is certainly an excellent piece, and has not suf fered, I hope, so much in the translation, as to justify a cold reception at London, after having run into the most general esteem at Paris. I will do all in my power to prepare the town to receive it, to which end I have given the profits to a gentleman whose acquaintance is too large for his fortune, and your good taste and good nature assure me of your willing concurrence so far, as not only to say of it what it deserves, but to say it at such times and in such manner as you know best how to chuse, in order to give your recommendation the intended good consequence.

Lord Bolingbroke was a patron of M. Voltaire, and can effectually advance the reception of his play amongst those who are most his friends, and best able to support it at its appearance. I have ventured to ask it in the author's behalf, and beg you would convey the letter and translation to my