I am gathering up my luggage, and preparing for my journey I will endeavour to think of you as little as I can, and when I write to you, I will strive not to think of you this I intend in return to your kindness; and further, I know nobody has dealt with me so cruelly as you, the consequences of which usage I fear will last as long as my life, for so long shall I be (in spite of my heart) entirely yours.

SIR,

LETTER LII.

MR. CONGREVE TO MR. POPE.

Ashley, Monday.

I HAD designed to have waited on you to-day, but have been out of order since Saturday, as I have been most of the summer; and as the days are now, unless I am able to rise in a morning, it will be hard to go and come, and have any pleasure between the whiles. The next day after I had known from you where Lady Mary was, I sent to know how she did; but by her answer I perceive she has the goodness for me to believe I have been all this summer here, though I had been here but a fortnight, when you came to see me. Pray give her my most humble service. If I can, I will wait on you. I am your, &c.

LETTER LIII.

MR. CONGREVE TO MR. POPE.

Surrey-street, Jan. 29,

I RETURN you a thousand thanks for your letter about Spa-water. Dr. Arbuthnot has ordered me at present to drink salt-water, so I cannot expressly say when I shall want the Spa; but if the person men

VOL. VIII.

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tioned by you, imports any quantity for himself at any time, I shall be glad to know of it. I am sorry you did not keep your word in letting me see you a second time. I am always, dear Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER LIV.

MR. CONGREVE TO MR. POPE.

May 6 (1726).

I HAVE the pleasure of your very kind letter. I have always been obliged to you for your friendship and concern for me, and am more affected with it, than I will take upon me to express in this letter. I do assure you there is no return wanting on my part, and am very sorry I had not the good luck to see the Dean before I left the town: it is a great pleasure to me, and not a little vanity, to think that he misses me. As to my health, which you are so kind to inquire after, it is not worse than in London: I am almost afraid yet to say that it is better, for I cannot reasonably expect much effect from these waters in so short a time; but in the main they seem to agree with me. Here is not one creature that I know, which next to the few I would choose, contributes very much to my satisfaction. At the same time that I regret the want of your conversation, I please myself with thinking that you are where you first ought to be, and engaged where you cannot do too much. Pray give my humble service and best wishes to your good mother. I am sorry you do not tell me how Mr. Gay does in his health; I should have been glad to have heard he was better. My young amanuensis, as you call him, I am afraid will prove but a wooden one: and you know ex quovis ligno, &c. You will pardon Mrs. R's pedantry, Yours, &c.

and believe me to be

P. S. By the inclosed you will see I am like to be impressed, and enrolled in the list of Mr. Curll's authors: but I thank God I shall have your company. I believe it is high time you should think of administering another emetic1.

LETTER LV.

DR. YOUNG TO MR. POPE.

DEAR SIR,

May 2.

HAVING been often from home, I know not if you have done me the favour of calling on me; but be that as it will, I much want that instance of your friendship I mentioned in my last, a friendship I am very sensible I can receive from no one but yourself". I should not urge this thing so much, but for very particular reasons; nor can you be at a loss to conceive how a trifle of this nature may be of serious moment to me; and while I am in hopes of the great advantage of your advice about it, I shall not be so absurd as to take any farther step without it. I know you are much engaged, and only hope to hear from you at your entire leisure. I am, &c.

4 We cannot but wish for more of Mr. Congreve's letters, written with the true and proper ease of an epistolary style, and therefore totally different from those of his master, Wycherley, whom he too closely imitated in his comedies. Congreve is said to have written nothing in the Tatler, Spectator, or Guardian, but the well-drawn character of Aspasia, in the forty-second number of the Tatler.-Warton.

5 This, I imagine, may relate to the request of a Prologue. So, in one of the Satires, he says:

، Three things another's modest wishes bound,

Your Friendship, and a Prologue, and-Ten pound.”—Bowles.

July 23, 1726. THOUGH you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm', and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That may add to this pleasure, and give you further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again, by the end of next week; by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu, Jonathan, Alexander, John! Mirth be with you!

I

6 From this address to the three poets, then residing together, under the name of Yahoos, it is plain that Swift's manuscript of Gulliver's Travels had been canvassed by the brotherhood; and that Gay's ignorance with respect to the author, as expressed in his letter of 17th November, 1726, was entirely affected. Yet Mr. Sheridan, in his life of Swift, seems to have thought that Gay and Pope were really under some doubt concerning the author of Gulliver's Travels upon the first appearance of that singular production.-Sir W. Scott.

7 The country residence of Lord Bolingbroke, near Cranford, in Middlesex. H.-Sir W. Scott.

LETTER LVII.

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.

August 22, 1726. MANY a short sigh you cost me the day I left you, and many more you will cost me till the day you return. I really walked about like a man banished, and when I came home found it no home. It is a sensation like that of a limb lopped off: one is trying every minute unawares to use it, and finds it is not. I may say you have used me more cruelly than you have done any other man; you have made it more impossible for me to live at ease without you: habitude itself would have done that, if I had less friendship in my nature than I have. Besides Besides my natural memory of you, you have made a local one, which presents you to me in every place I frequent; I shall never more think of Lord Cobham's, the woods of Ciceter, or the pleasing prospect of Byberry, but your idea must be joined with them; nor see one seat in my own garden, or one room in my own house, without a phantom of you, sitting or walking before me. I travelled with you to Chester. I felt the extreme heat of the weather, the inns, the roads, the confinement and closeness of the uneasy coach, and wished a hundred times I had either a deanery or a horse in my gift. In real truth, I have felt my soul peevish ever since with all about me, from a warm uneasy desire after you. I am gone out of myself to no purpose, and cannot catch you. Inhiat in pedes was not more properly applied to a poor dog after a hare, than to me with regard to your departure. I wish I could think no more of it, but lie down and sleep till we meet again, and let that day