of the sum I have of yours, I will obey you, Hitherto I have only acted in your affair as I have done in my

own.

I hope you had the Grand Cyrus by the Reading coach, above a week ago. I am in London almost constantly, and every hour in company; have renewed all my idle and evil haunts; am not very well; sit up very late, &c. I have lately been told, my person is in some danger; and (in any such case) the sum of 11217. will be left for you in Mr. Gay's hands. I have made that matter secure against accidents.

Gay is well at court, and more in the way of being served than ever. However, not to trust too much to hopes, he will have a play acted in four or five weeks, which we have driven a bargain for.

I long to see you both and love you so very well, that I wish I were the handsomest fellow in England for your sakes. I dined yesterday with Jacky Campbell, at the Duke of Argyle's. Gay dines daily with the Maids of Honour. Adieu. I am melancholy,-and drunk.

Tuesday night.

LETTER XXXVIII.

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

MADAM,

Sunday.

THIS is just to let you know, that being again in the city yesterday, I was obliged to stay so late, that I could not go home: so that, if you have any thing to say to me, here I am; and here shall stay, till the matter of your annuities is decided, on purpose to do as you commission me. I expected some answer to my last.

Your other business is at last brought about. I have

borrowed money upon ours and Mr. Eckershal's' orders, and bought 5007. stock S. Sea, at 180. It is since risen to 184. I wish us all good luck in it, and am very glad to have done what you seemed so desirous of. I am, &c.

My faithful services to your mother and sister.

LETTER XXXIX.

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

DEAR MADAM,

2

I FIND, upon coming to town, that Mrs. Robinson's tickets are not given out till to-morrow. I hope this notice will arrive in time, before you are engaged otherwise.

If you will give this bearer your Exchequer orders for 500%. I will get them registered, and the interest received; this being a proper time to send them to the Exchequer.

I heartily wish you all the amusements and pleasures I must be (for a time at least) deprived of. I beg you to think me not the worst of your friends, who, after so many mistakes, and so many misfortunes, am resolved to continue unalterably, Madam, Yours.

1 The Eckershals probably mentioned in Gay's Poems, vol. ii. p. 404. Lo! Tooker, Eckershal, Sykes, Rawlinson." C.-Bowles.

2 Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer, afterwards Lady Peterborough. C.-Bowles.

MADAM,

LETTER XL.

TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT.

Feb. 21.

I AM too much out of order to trouble you with a long letter. But I desire to know what is your meaning, to resent my complying with your request, and endeavouring to serve you in the way you proposed, as if I had done you some great injury? You told me, if such a thing was the secret of my heart, you should entirely forgive, and think well of me. I told it, and find the contrary. You pretended so much generosity, as to offer your service in my behalf. The minute after, you did me as ill an office as you could, in telling the party concerned, it was all but an amusement, occasioned by my loss of another lady.

You express yourself desirous of increasing your present income upon life. I proposed the only method I then could find, and you encouraged me to proceed in it. When it was done, you received it as if it were an affront; since, when I find the very thing in the very manner you wished, and mention it to you, you do not think it worth an answer.

If your meaning be, that the very things you ask, and wish, become odious to you, when it is I that comply with them, or bring them about, pray own it, and deceive me no longer with any thought, but that you hate me. My friendship is too warm and sincere to be trifled with: therefore, if you have any meaning, tell it me, or you must allow me to take away that which perhaps you do not care to keep.

Your humble servant.

I shall speedily obey you, in sending the papers you ordered; which, when I do, be pleased to sign the inclosed receipt, and return it by the bearer of them.

LETTER XLI.

TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT.

MADAM,

YOUR letter gives me a concern, which none, but one who (in spite of all accidents) is still a friend, can feel. I am pleased, however, that any thing I said explains my past actions or words in a better sense than you took them. I know in my heart (a very uncorrupt witness), that I was constantly the thing I professed myself to be, to you; that was, something better, I will venture to say, than most people were capable to be, to you, or any body else.

As for forgiveness, I am approaching, I hope, to that time and condition, in which every body ought to give it, and to ask it of all the world. I sincerely do so with regard to you; and beg pardon also for that very fault of which I taxed others, my vanity, which made me so resenting.

We are too apt to resent things too highly, till we come to know, by some great misfortune or other, how much we are born to endure and as for me, you need not suspect of resentment a soul which can feel nothing but grief.

I desire extremely to see you both again: yet I believe I shall see you no more; and I sincerely hope, as well as think, both of you will be glad of it. I therefore wish you may each of you find all you desired I could be, in some one whom you may like better to see. In the mean time, I bear testimony of both of you to each other, that I have certainly known you truly and tenderly each other's friend, and wish you a long enjoyment of each other's love and affectionate offices. I am piqued at your brother, as much as I have

spirits left to be piqued at any one: and I promise you I will prove it, by doing every thing I can in your service. I am sincerely.

LETTER XLII.

TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT.

THE chief cause I have to repent my leaving the town, is the uncertainty I am in every day of your sister's state of health. I really expected by every post to have heard of her recovery, but on the contrary each letter has been a new awakening to my apprehensions, and I have ever since suffered alarms upon alarms on her account. No one can be more sensibly touched at this than I; nor any danger of any I love could affect me with more uneasiness. I have felt some weaknesses of a tender kind, which I would not be free from; and I am glad to find my value for people so rightly placed, as to perceive them on this occasion.

I cannot be so good a Christian as to be willing to resign my own happiness here, for hers in another life. I do more than wish for her safety, for every wish I make I find immediately changed into a prayer, and a more fervent one than I had learned to make till

now.

May her life be longer and happier than perhaps herself may desire, that is, as long and as happy as you can wish may her beauty be as great as possible, that

3 A passage in the original, which is omitted here, may perhaps serve to illustrate, if any thing can, the nature of Pope's attachment to Martha Blount. "A month ago I should have laughed at any one, who had told me my heart would be perpetually beating for a lady that was thirty miles off from me and indeed I never imagined my concern could be half so great for any young woman whom I have been no more obliged to than to so innocent an one as she. But, madam, it is with the utmost seriousness I assure you, no relation you have can be, &c." C.-Bowles.