LETTER X. MR. POPE TO MR. GAY. DEAR MR. GAY, Sept. 23, 1714. WELCOME to your native soil!* welcome to your friends! thrice welcome to me! whether returned in glory, blest with court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future; whether returned a triumphant Whig, or a desponding Tory, equally all hail! equally beloved and welcome to me! If happy, I am to partake in your elevation; if unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavoured to serve you, and whose politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think, your principles and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an honest man, and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are incapable of being so much of either party as * In the beginning of this year Mr. Gay went over to Hanover with the Earl of Clarendon, who was sent thither by Queen Anne. On her death they returned to England; and it was on this occasion that Mr. Pope met him with this friendly welcome. Warburton. to be good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are, or in whatever state you are, all hail! One or two of your own friends complained they had heard nothing from you since the Queen's death; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof, how truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse; as men who really value one another will never want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits: even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect any thing from any reign, was borne away with the current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys I knew not whither to aim a letter after you; that was a sort of shooting flying: add to this the demand Homer had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend! that my labour is over; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague? or have the two great pastoral poets of our nation renounced love at the same time? for Philips, immortal Philips, hath deserted, yea, and in a rustic manner, kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnelle and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnelle is in an ill state of health. Pardon me, if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on the king, or prince, or princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am entirely, as ever, Your, &c. LETTER XI. MR. POPE TO DR. PARNELLE. DEAR SIR, Binfield, near Oakingham, I BELIEVE the hurry you were in hindered your giving me a word by the last post, so that I am yet to learn whether you got well to town, or continue so there. I very much fear both for your * This appears to have been written when Dr. Parnelle was in England, in the lifetime of Queen Anne, and was introduced by Swift to Harley. health and your quiet; and no man living can be more truly concerned in any thing that touches either, than myself. I would comfort myself, however, with hoping that your business may not be unsuccessful, for your sake; and that, at least, it may soon be put into other proper hands. For my own, I beg earnestly of you to return to us as soon as possible. You know how very much I want you, and that however your business may depend upon any other, my business depends entirely upon you, and yet still I hope you will find your man, even though I lose you the mean while. At this time the more I love you, the more I can spare you; which alone will, I dare say, be a reason to you, to let me have you back the sooner. The minute I lost you, Eustathius with nine hundred pages, and nine thousand contractions of the Greek character, arose to my view! Spondanus, with all his auxiliaries, in number a thousand pages, (value three shillings,) and Dacier's three volumes, Barnes's two, Valterie's three, Cuperus, half in Greek, Leo Allatius, three parts in Greek; Scaliger, Macrobius, and (worse than them all) Aulus Gellius! All these rushed upon my soul at once, and whelmed me under a fit of the headache. Dear Sir, not only as you are a friend, and a good-natured man; but as you are a christian and a divine, come back speedily, and prevent the increase of my sins; for at the rate I have begun to rave, I shall not only damn all the poets and commentators who have gone before me, but be damned myself by all who come after me. To be serious, you have not only left me to the last degree impatient for your return, who at all times should have been so; (though never so much as since I knew you in best health here;) but you have wrought several miracles upon our family; you have made old people fond of a young and gay person, and inveterate papists of a clergyman of the church of England: even nurse herself is in danger of being in love in her old age, and (for aught I know) would even marry Dennis for your sake, because he is your man, and loves his master. In short, come down forthwith, or give me good reasons for delaying, though but for a day or two, by the next post. If I find them just, I will come up to you, though you know how precious my time is at present; my hours were never worth so much money before; but perhaps you are not sensible of this, who give away your own works. You are a generous author; I, a hackney scribbler; you are a Grecian, and bred at a University; I, a poor Englishman of my own educating; you are a reverend parson; I, a wag; in short, you are Dr. Parnelle (with an E at the end of your name) and I, your most obliged and affectionate friend, and faithful servant. My hearty service to the Dean, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and the true genuine shepherd, J. Gay of Devon. I expect him down with you. |