escapes; and how proud oaks are blasted, while the lowly shrub remains unsinged. They say, the only thing that escapes it is the laurel, which yet we take not to be a sufficient security to the brains of modern poets. But to let you see that the contrary to this often happens, I must acquaint you, that here in our neighbourhood, Blenheim, the most proud and extravagant heap of towers in the nation, stands untouched; while a cock of corn in the next field is miserably reduced to ashes.

"Would to God, that cock of corn had been all that suffered! for, unhappily, beneath that little shelter sate two lovers, no way yielding to those you so often find in a romance, under a beechen shade. The name of the one was John Hewet, and of the other Sarah Drew. John was black, of about five-and-twenty; Sarah was of a comely brown, near the same age. John had for several months borne the sweat of the day, and divided the labour of the harvest with Sarah: he took a particular delight to do her all the little offices that might please her: it was but last fair he brought her a present of green silk to line her straw hat, and that too he had bought for her but the market-day before. Whenever she milked, it was his care to bring the cows to her pail, and after to attend her with them to the field, upon pretence of helping to drive them. In short, their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all he aimed at was the blameless possession of her in marriage. It was but this very morning he obtained the consent of her parents, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their weddingclothes, and John was suiting several sorts of poppies and fieldflowers to Sarah's complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July, between the hours of two and three in the afternoon), the clouds grew black, a terrible storm of thunder and lightning ensued; the labourers who were in the field, made the best of their way to what shelter the hedges or trees afforded. Sarah frighted, and out of breath, sunk down on a heap of wheat-sheaves; and John, who never separated from her, raked two or three heaps together, to protect her; and sate down by her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack, that Heaven seemed burst asunder: every one was solicitous for the safety of his next neighbour, and called to one another. Those who were nearest our lovers,

hearing no answer, stepped to the sheaves. They first spied a little smoke, and then saw this faithful pair, John with one arm about her neck, and the other extended over her face, as to shield her from the lightning, both stiff and cold in this tender posture: no mark or blemish on the bodies, except the left eyebrow of Sarah a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts.

"The evening I arrived here I met the funeral of this unfortunate couple. They were both laid in one grave, in the parishchurch of Stanton Harcourt. I have prevailed on my Lord Harcourt to erect a little monument over them, of plain stone, and have writ the following epitaph, which is to be engraved on it. "When eastern," &c. [The same as in the printed Letter.] "After all that we call unfortunate in this accident, I cannot but own, I think next to living so happy as these people might have done, was dying as they did. And did any one love me so well as Sarah did John, I would much rather die thus with her than live after her. I could not but tell you this true and tender story, and should be pleased to have you as much moved by it as I am. I wish you had some pity for my sake; and I assure you I shall have for the future more fear for yours; since I see by this melancholy example, that innocence and virtue are no security for what you are so afraid of. May the hand of God, dear Madam, be seen upon you, in nothing but in your beauties, and his blessings! I am firmly and affectionately for ever Yours.

"August 9th. This letter has been ready three days; but, disappointed by the post-boy's not calling, for we lie in a cross road. Your sister gave me hopes of a line from you; but I have received none. I am more vexed at Mrs. Cary's, than I believe you can be. I would give the world if you had the courage, both of you, to pass the fortnight in and about my wood. I would secure you of a good house within an hour of it, and a daily entertainment in it. I go thither very speedily. I am sure of your sister at least, that she would do this, or any thing else, if she had a mind to it. Let her take trial of some of Angel's horses, and a coach, for me. Upon the least hint, I will send to Prince to conduct them. My mother, Gay, and I, will meet you, and shew you Blenheim by the way. I dare believe Mrs. Blount would not stick out at my And so damn Grinsted and all its works. Our roads are very good all September; come, stay, and welcome." One of Pope's letters to Lady M. W. Montagu, (vol. ix. p. 98.)

request.

contains the same story, and almost in the same words; but, the reader will observe, rather in the words of the original, than of the copy hitherto printed. It may be worthy of remark too, that in his letter to Lady M. W. Montagu, he states the accident as having happened "just under his eyes;" and that the lovers were buried next day; but in the original to Miss Blount, he says that "he met the funeral of the unfortunate couple the evening he arrived." These are inconsistencies which cannot easily be reconciled; and, it is yet more wonderful, that the relation of this accident should have been so long attributed to Gay, and without any suspicion that Pope was the real author, although in the same volume he sends it to Lady M. W. Montagu.

*

C.

They can be accounted for by Pope's incessant labour for fame. He was always fearful of losing what he had gained, and sent nothing into the world without care and circumspection. What he was not pleased with, he altered, or suppressed, or sometimes fathered upon Gay. Bowles.

There is no occasion to resort to these conjectures in order to account for the different letters that remain on this subject; the fact being, that the letter was originally a joint production of Pope and Gay, each of whom sent copies of it, as relating a singular and affecting incident, to such of their friends as they thought proper: making such alterations as circumstances might, at the moment of writing, suggest. That Pope ever corrected any of them for the purpose of publication, there is no more ground to suppose, than there is to believe that the copies he retained of his letters to Lady Mary, and on which Mr. Bowles has founded so unwarranted an imputation, had been corrected by him for that purpose. See Life of Pope, prefixed to this edition, chap. iv. p. 198, (note) and preliminary observations on the correspondence with Lady Mary, in vol. ix. p. 4.

SIR,

LETTER XXXII.

MR. POPE TO MR. FENTON.

May 5, (1719).

I HAD not omitted answering yours of the eighteenth of last month, but out of a desire to give you some certain and satisfactory account, which way, and at what time, you might take your journey. I am now commissioned to tell you, that Mr. Craggs* will expect you on the rising of the

* Mr. Craggs had had no learned education: he wanted to improve himself in letters, and desired Mr. Pope to chuse him out a polite scholar, by whose conversation and instruction he might profit. Mr. Pope recommended Mr. Fenton; but Mr. Craggs's untimely death prevented the two latter from receiving the mutual benefits of this connexion. Warburton.

After his severe disappointment, occasioned by the death of Mr. Craggs, he brought out his tragedy of Mariumne, 1723, which was acted with great success at the Lincoln's Inn Fields' theatre, after Cibber had rejected it at Drury Lane, with equal insolence and ill taste. He consulted his old friend Southerne, on the conduct of this drama; which, and the Siege of Damascus, Mr. Walpole thinks the two last best of modern tragedies. It produced him 1000l. He dedicated it to Lord Gower, to whom he addressed one of the finest odes in our language. Akenside was for ever praising this ode. The Marianne of Voltaire was first played, and miscarried, in 1722. These two pieces had not the least resemblance to each other. The assistance he gave to Pope in translating the Odyssey, published in 1724, is well known. In 1725, he published an edition of Paradise Lost, revising and rectifying the punctuation; to which he prefixed a short, but very elegant, account of Milton's Life, and spoke of our great poet's political opinions, with a candour and liberality that does him much credit, considering they were so opposite to his own, who

parliament, which will be as soon as he can receive you in the manner he would receive a man de belles lettres, that is, in tranquillity and full leisure. I dare say your way of life (which, in my taste, will be the best in the world, and with one of the best men in the world) must prove highly to your contentment. And, I must add, it will be still the more a joy to me, as I shall reap a particular advantage from the good I shall have done in bringing you together, by seeing it in my own neighbourhood. Mr. Craggs has taken a house close by mine, whither he proposes to come in three weeks in the mean time I heartily invite you to live with me; where a frugal and philoso

was a Nonjuror, and a firm friend to the Stuart family. And, 1729, Fenton gave to the public his last work, a magnificent edition of Waller, in quarto, with many notes and illustrations, of poems, which, from their nature, being personal, required many. He died 1730, at Easthamstead, in the house of his friend the Lady Trumbull, whose family he had for some time superintended, and who treated him with much tenderness and attention. Mr. Harte, who knew many particulars of his life, once told me he would write an account of it. He had a regard for Harte, whose father also was a Nonjuror, a man of remarkable piety and integrity. When Judge Jeffries came to Taunton Assizes, 1685, to execute his commission on the rebels that had joined Monmouth, old Mr. Harte, at that time minister of St. Mary's Church at Taunton, waited on him privately, and remonstrated much against the severities which he was going to inflict. The judge listened to him calmly and attentively; and, though he had never seen him before, to his great surprize, advanced him in a few months to a Prebendal Stall in the Cathedral of Bristol. I thought the reader might not dislike to hear this anecdote of Jeffries, the one only action of his life that I believe does him any credit.

Warton.