LETTER VI. THE REV. DEAN BERKLEY* TO MR. POPE. Leghorn, May 1, 1714. As I take ingratitude to be a greater crime than impertinence, I chuse rather to run the risk * We may with justice apply to this truly great man Berkley, what he himself so finely says of his favourite Plato; "that he hath joined with an imagination the most splendid and magnificent, an intellect not less deep and clear." A morsel of poetry from such a writer ought to be preserved as a literary curiosity, and a proof of the great variety of his talents; especially as it was written, almost with a prophetic spirit, above seventy years ago, and consequently before the events, in the country alluded to, could possibly have been foreseen. He intitled them, On the Prospect of planting Arts and Learning in America. Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, In happy climes, where, from the genial sun In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where Nature guides, and Virtue rules, There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts. Not of being thought guilty of the latter, than not to return you my thanks for a very agreeable entertainment you just now gave me. I have accidentally met with your Rape of the Lock here, having never seen it before. Style, painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in other of your writings; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your invention, with all those images, allusions, and inexplicable beauties, which you raise so surprizingly, and at the same time so naturally, out of a trifle. And yet I cannot say that I was more pleased with the reading of it than I am with the pretext it gives me to renew in your thoughts, the remembrance of one who values no happiness beyond the friendship of men of wit, learning, and good-nature. I remember to have heard you mention some half-formed design of coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a Muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun, and breathed the same air with Virgil and Horace? There are here an incredible number of poets, that have all the inclination, but want the genius, Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; Westward the course of empire takes its way; A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Warton. or perhaps the art, of the ancients. Some among them, who 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+ * 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 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 left the greatest part of his family in this town. God knows how long we shall stay here. I am your, &c. LETTER VII. MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT. June 18, 1714.* 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 poem, he exclaimed, "He write an epic poem, a Londoner, who has never seen a mountain!" Warton. 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. 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. I am told further, that you treat the few you correspond 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 |