more to reform than chastise3, though the one cannot be effected without the other.

Lord Bathurst I have always honoured, for every good quality that a person of his rank ought to have pray, give my respects and kindest wishes to the family. My venison stomach is gone, but I have those about me, and often with me, who will be very glad of his present. If it is left at my house, it will be transmitted safe to me.

A recovery in my case, and at my age, is impossible; the kindest wish of my friends is Euthanasia. Living or dying, I shall always be

Your, etc.

LETTER L.

TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.

July 26, 1734.

I THANK you for your letter, which has all those genuine marks of a good mind by which I have ever distinguished yours, and for which I have so long loved you. Our friendship has been constant; because it was grounded on good principles, and therefore not only uninterrupted by any Distrust, but by any Vanity, much less any Interest.

What you recommend to me with the solemnity

'A very sensible and important piece of advice; which our А Poet, however, did not follow, and gives his reasons for not observing his excellent friend's salutary admonition, in the succeeding Letter. But the reasons are not so solid as the admonition.

of a Last Request, shall have its due weight with me. That Disdain and Indignation against Vice, is (I thank God) the only disdain and indignation I have: It is sincere, and it will be a lasting one. But sure it is as impossible to have a just abhorrence of Vice, without hating the Vicious, as to bear a true love for Virtue, without loving the Good. To reform and not to chastise, I am afraid, is impossible; and that the best precepts, as well as the best Laws, would prove of small use, if there were no Examples to enforce them. To attack Vices in the abstract, without touching Persons, may be safe fighting indeed, but it is fighting with shadows. General propositions are obscure, misty, and uncertain, compared with plain, full, and home Examples: Precepts only apply to our Reason, which in most men is but weak: Examples are pictures, and strike the Senses, nay raise the Passions, and call in those (the strongest and most general of all motives) to the aid of reformation. Every vicious man makes the case his own; and that is the only way by which such men can be affected, much less deterred. So that to chastise is to reform. The only sign by which I found my writings ever did any good, or had any weight, has been, that they raised the anger of bad men. And my greatest comfort, and encouragement to proceed, has been to see, that those who have no shame, and no fear of any thing else, have appeared touched by my Satires.

As to your kind concern for my Safety, I can guess what occasions it at this time. Some Charac

ters* I have drawn are such, that if there be any who deserve them, 'tis evidently a service to mankind to point those men out; yet such as, if all the world gave them, none, I think, will own they take to themselves. But if they should, those of whom all the world think in such a manner, must be men I cannot fear. Such in particular as have the meanness to do mischiefs in the dark, have seldom the courage to justify them in the face of the day; the talents that make a Cheat or a Whisperer, are not the same that qualify a man for an Insulter: and as to private villany, it is not so safe to join in an Assassination, as in a Libel3. I will consult my safety so far as I think becomes a prudent man: but not so far as to omit any thing which I think becomes an honest one. As to personal attacks beyond the law, every man is liable to them; as for danger within the law, I am not guilty enough to fear any. For the good opinion of all the world, I know, it is not to be had: for that of worthy men, I hope I shall not forfeit it; for that of the Great, or those in power, I may wish I had it; but if through misrepresentations (too common about persons in that station) I have it not, I shall be sorry, but not miserable in the want of it.

It is certain, much freer Satirists than I have enjoyed the encouragement and protection of the Princes under whom they lived. Augustus and Mæcenas made Horace their companion, though he had been in arms on the side of Brutus; and, allow me

The Character of Sporus in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. W.

* See the Letter to a Noble Lord, vol. iii. p. 339. W.

to remark, it was out of the suffering Party too, that they favoured and distinguished Virgil. You will not suspect me of comparing myself with Virgil and Horace, nor even with another Court-favourite, Boileau. I have always been too modest to imagine my Panegyrics were incense worthy of a Court; and that, I hope, will be thought the true reason why I have never offered any. I would only have observed, that it was under the greatest Princes and best Ministers, that moral Satirists were most encouraged; and that then poets exercised the same jurisdiction over the Follies, as Historians did over the Vices of men. It may also be worth considering, whether Augustus himself makes the greater figure, in the writings of the former, or of the latter? and whether Nero and Domitian do not appear as ridiculous for their false Taste and Affectation, in Persius and Juvenal, as odious for their bad Government in Tacitus and Suetonius? In the first of these reigns it was, that Horace was protected and caressed: and in the latter that Lucan was put to death, and Juvenal banished.

I would not have said so much, but to shew you my whole heart on this subject; and to convince you, I am deliberately bent to perform that Request

We must be compelled to own, that the integrity of Lucan and Juvenal, though not their Genius, was superior to that of Horace and Virgil; and that the Death of one, and the Exile of the other, confers on them more real honour, than all the favours lavished on the other two great Court Poets. Lucan, notwithstanding Quintilian thinks he ought to be numbered rather among Historians than Poets, is a writer that abounds in new and noble images, and in manly, patriotic sentiments.

which you make your last to me, and to perform it with Temper, Justice, and Resolution. As your approbation (being the testimony of a sound head and an honest heart) does greatly confirm me herein, I wish you may live to see the effect it may hereafter have upon me, in something more deserving of that approbation. But if it be the Will of God (which, I know, will also be yours) that we must separate, I hope it will be better for You than it can be for me. You are fitter to live, or to die, than any man I know. Adieu, my dear friend! and may God preserve your easy, or make your death happy'.

life

LETTER LI.

MR. MALLET TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

WHAT you are pleased to observe concerning the work I am engaged in (the Life of Marlborough), is a truth never out of my thoughts; whether I am alone or in company. When I am obliged to mix with the very futile conversation of the dullest of mankind, those who think and talk only from Magazines and Newspapers, even then, the recalling from time to time what I have learnt from your Lordship's conversation, preserves the tone of my mind, and brings up those trains of ideas which your Lordship's conversation has impressed deeply. But I am hastening home, to give myself up entirely to what will require all my application, as well as my severest