understand English, begin to relish our authors; and I am informed that at Florence they have translated Milton into Italian verse. If one who knows so well how to write like the old Latin poets, came among them, it would probably be a means to retrieve them from their cold, trivial conceits, to an imitation of their predecessors.

As merchants, antiquaries, men of pleasure, &c. have all different views in travelling, I know not whether it might not be worth a poet's while to travel, in order to store his mind with strong images of Nature.

Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling streams, are no where in such perfection as in England: but if you would know lightsome days, warm suns, and blue skies, you must come to Italy; and to enable a man to describe rocks' and precipices, it is absolutely necessary that he pass the Alps.

You will easily perceive that it is self-interest makes me so fond of giving advice to one who has no need of it. If you came into these parts, I should fly to see you. I am here (by the favour of my good friend the Dean of St. Patrick's) in quality of Chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough; who above three months since

6 Thomson has expressed, in a letter from Italy, to Dodington, nearly the same idea of a poet's travelling:

:

"Your observation I find every day juster and juster, that one may profit more abroad by seeing than by hearing and yet there are scarce any to be met with, who have given a landscape of the countries through which they travelled, seen them with the Muse's eye,' (as you express it,) though that is the first thing that strikes, and what all readers of travels in the first place demand. It seems to me that such a poetical landscape of countries, mixed with moral observations on their governments, would not at all be an ill-judged undertaking: but then the description of the different face of Nature, in different countries, must be particularly marked and characteristic,-the portrait-painting of Nature."

From a MS. letter of Thomson to Dodington, in possession of H. P. Wyndham, dated Paris, Dec. 27, 1730.-Bowles.

When Thomson was told that Glover was writing an epic poem, he exclaimed, "He write an epic poem, a Londoner, who has never seen a mountain!"-Warton.

left the greatest part of his family in this town. God knows how long we shall stay here.

LETTER VII.

I am your, &c.

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.

June 18, 17148.

WHATEVER apologies it might become me to make at any other time for writing to you, I shall use none now, to a man who has owned himself as splenetic as a cat in the country. In that circumstance, I know by experience, a letter is a very useful, as well as amusing thing; if you are too busied in state affairs to read it, yet you may find entertainment in folding it into divers figures, either doubling it into a pyramidical, or twisting it into a serpentine form: or, if your disposition should not be so mathematical, in taking it with you to that place where men of studious minds are apt to sit longer than ordinary; where, after an abrupt division of the paper, it may not be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the broken lines together. All these amusements I am no stranger to in the country, and doubt not but (by this time) you begin to relish them, in your present contemplative situation.

I remember a man who was thought to have some knowledge in the world, used to affirm, that no people in town ever complained they were forgotten by their friends in the country: but my increasing experience convinces me he was mistaken, for I find a great many here grievously complaining of you upon this score. am told further, that you treat the few you correspond

I

8 At this time Swift had retired from town, to the house of his friend the Rev. Mr. Gery, at Upper Letcombe in Berkshire, disgusted with public life, by the failure of his attempts to reconcile Harley and Bolingbroke; at which place this letter was addressed to him.

with in a very arrogant style, and tell them you admire at their insolence in disturbing your meditations, or even inquiring of your retreat but this I will not positively assert, because I never received any such insulting epistle from you. My Lord Oxford says you have not written to him once since you went; but this perhaps may be only policy, in him or you: and I, who am half a Whig, must not entirely credit any thing he affirms. At Button's it is reported you are gone to Hanover, and that Gay goes only on an embassy to you. Others apprehend some dangerous state treatise from your retirement; and a wit, who affects to imitate Balsac, says that the ministry now are like those heathens of old who received their oracles from the woods. The gentlemen of the Roman Catholic persuasion are not unwilling to credit me, when I whisper, that you are gone to meet some Jesuits commissioned from the court of Rome, in order to settle the most convenient methods to be taken for the coming of the Pretender. Dr. Arbuthnot is singular in his opinion, and imagines your only design is to attend at full leisure to the life and adventures of Scriblerus 9. This indeed must be granted of greater importance than all the rest; and I wish I could promise so well of you. The top of my own ambition is to contribute to that great work, and I shall translate Homer by the bye. Mr. Gay has acquainted you what progress I have made in it. I cannot name Mr. Gay, without all the acknowledgments which I shall ever owe you on his account.

9 This project (in which the principal persons engaged were Dr. Arbuthnot, Dr. Swift, and Mr. Pope) was a very noble one. It was to write a complete satire in prose upon the abuses in every branch of science, comprised in the history of the life and writings of Scriblerus; the issue of which was only some detached parts and fragments, such as the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Travels of Gulliver, the Treatise of the Profund, the literal Criticisms of Virgil, &c.-Warburton.

The three last-mentioned works were not at all in the character of Dr. Scriblerus.-Warton.

If I writ this in verse, I would tell you, you are like the sun, and while men imagine you to be retired or absent, are hourly exerting your indulgence, and bringing things to maturity for their advantage. Of all the world, you are the man (without flattery) who serve your friends with the least ostentation; it is almost ingratitude to thank you, considering your temper; and this is the period of all my letter which I fear you will think the most impertinent. I am, with the truest affection, Yours, &c.

LETTER VIII.

MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT.

SIR,

London, July 8, 1714.

SINCE you went out of the town, my Lord Clarendon was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Hanover, in the room of Lord Paget; and by making use of those friends, which I entirely owe to you, he has accepted me for his secretary. This day, by appointment, I met his Lordship at Mr. Secretary Bromley's office; he then ordered me to be ready by Saturday. I am quite off from the Duchess of Monmouth. Mr. Lewis was very ready to serve me upon this occasion, as were Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Ford. I am every day attending my lord-treasurer for his bounty, in order to set me out; which he has promised me upon the following petition, which I sent him by Dr. Arbuthnot:

THE EPIGRAMMATICAL PETITION OF JOHN GAY.

I'm no more to converse with the swains,

But go where fine people resort;

One can live without money on plains,

But never without it at court.

Swift was at this time earnestly soliciting, among his great friends, subscriptions for Pope's Homer.-Bowles,

If, when with the swains I did gambol,

I array'd me in silver and blue 2;

When abroad, and in courts I shall ramble,
Pray, my lord, how much money will do?

We had the honour of the treasurer's company last Saturday, when we sat upon Scriblerus. Pope is in town, and has brought with him the first book of Homer.

I am this evening to be at Mr. Lewis's with the Provost 3, Mr. Ford, Parnelle, and Pope. It is thought my Lord Clarendon will make but a short stay at Hanover. If it was possible, that any recommendation could be procured to make me more distinguished than ordinary, during my stay at that court, I should think myself very happy, if you could contrive any method to prosecute it; for I am told, that their civilities very rarely descend so low as to the secretary. I have all the reason in the world to acknowledge this as wholly owing to you; and the many favours I have received from you, purely out of your love for doing good, assures me you will not forget me in my absence. As for myself, whether I am at home or abroad, gratitude will always put me in mind of the man to whom I owe so many benefits. I am your most obliged humble servant, J. GAY,

Gay's finery was the subject of ridicule both to himself and his friends. In the preface to his pastorals he describes his equipment for

court:

"I sold my sheep and lambkins too,

For silver loops and garment blue."

And Pope, in his humorous letter to the Dean, describes Gay as an unhappy youth, who has miserably lavished away all that silver he should have reserved for his soul's health, in buttons and loops for his coat.-Sir W. Scott.

3 Of Dublin College, Dr. Benjamin Pratt.

VOL. VIII.