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capacity as leisure, for I am perfectly idle (a sign I have not much capacity).

If you will entertain the best opinion of me, be pleased to think me your friend. Assure Mr. Addison of my most faithful service; of every one's esteem he must be assured already. I am your, &c.

SA. POPE.

weak part of his party very fairly, that the good people took it. ill of me that I writ with Steele, though upon never so indifferent subjects. This, I know, you will laugh at, as well as I do; yet I doubt not but many little calumniators, and persons of sour dispositions, will take occasion hence to bespatter me. I confess, I scorn narrow souls of all parties; and, if I renounce my reason in religious matters, I will hardly do it in any other. I cannot imagine whence it comes to pass that the few Guardians I have written are so generally known for mine: that in particular which you mention I never discovered to any man but the publisher, till very lately: yet almost every body told me of it. As to his taking a more politic turn, I cannot any way enter into that secret, nor have I been let into it any more than into the rest of his politicks; though it is said, he will take into these papers also several subjects of the politer kind, as before: but, I assure you, as to myself, I have quite done with them for the future. The little I have done, and the great respect I bear Mr. Steele as a man of wit, has rendered me a suspected Whig to some of the violent; but (as old Dryden said before me) it is not the violent I design to please.'

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207. TO

207. TO MRS. STEELE.

DEAR PRUE,

NOV. 18, 1712.

I AM come from a Committee, where I have [been]

chairman, and drunk too much. I have the headache; and should be glad you would come to me in good-humour, which would always banish any uneasiness of temper from, dear Prue,

Your fond fool of a husband,

RICH. STEELE.

208. FROM MR. POPE.

NOV. 29, 1712.

I AM sorry you published that notion about Adri

an's verses* as mine: had I imagined you would

* In the Spectator above referred to, p. 248, Steele says, "I claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them appeared by any other means; to have animated a few young gentlemen into worthy pursuits, who will be a glory to our age; and at all times, and by all possible means in my power, undermined the interests of Ignorance, Vice, and Folly, and attempted to substitute in their stead Learning, Piety, and Good-sense. It is from this honest heart, that I find myself honoured as a gentleman-usher to the Arts and Sciences. Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope have, it seems, this idea of me. The former has written me an excellent paper of verses, in praise, forsooth, of myself; and the other inclosed for my perusal an admirable poem, which, I hope, will shortly see the light."

use

use my name, I should have expressed my sentiments with more modesty and diffidence. I only sent it to have your opinion, and not to publish my. own, which I distrusted. But I think the supposition you draw from the notion of Adrian's being addicted to magic, is a little uncharitable (" that he might fear no sort of deity, good or bad"), since, in the third verse, he plainly testifies his apprehension of a future state, by being solicitous whither his soul was going. As to what you mention of his using gay and ludicrous expressions, I have owned my opinion to be, that the expressions are not so; but that diminutives are as often, in the Latin tongue, used as marks of tenderness and concern.

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Anima is no more than " my soul;" animula has the force of "my dear soul." To say virgo bella, is not half so endearing as virguncula bellula; and had Augustus only called Horace lepidum hominem, it had amounted to no more than that he thought him a "pleasant fellow :" it was the homunciolum that expressed the love and tenderness that great Emperor had for him. And perhaps I should my-. self be much better pleased, if I were told you called me "your little friend," than if you complimented me with the title of "a great genius," or an eminent hand," as Jacob * does all his authors. I am your, &c. A. POPE.

* Jacob Tonson; in allusion to his well-known Collection of Miscellaneous Poems.

209. TO

209. TO MR. POPE.

DEC. 4, 1712.

THIS is to desire of you that you would please to make an ode as of a chearful dying spirit; that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's "animula vagula," put into two or three stanzas for music. If you comply with this, and send me word so, you will very particularly obligé

Your, &c.

RICH. STEELE.

210. FROM MR. POPE.

DEC.

...

1712.

I Do not send you word I will do, but have al

You have

ready done the thing you desire of me. it (as Cowley calls it) just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this morning: yet, you will see, it was not so absolutely inspiration *, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho, &c.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:

*It has been suggested, that some part of what is here ascribed to inspiration, and said to have come warm from Pope's brain, dropt originally from the pen of Flatman.

Trembling,

Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be Death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?

211. TO HENRY BOYLE, ESQ *.

SIR,

[1712.] As the professed design of this work is to entertain its readers in general, without giving offence to any particular person, it would be difficult to find

* Youngest son of Charles Lord Clifford. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer to King William in March 1701; was much esteemed by that Prince; and continued in that post till Feb. 12, 1707-8, when he was made one of the principal Secretaries of State, in which station he remained till Sept. 20, 1710. On the accession of George I. Mr. Boyle was created

Lord

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