420 LETTERS TO AND FROM THE MISS BLOUNTS. LETTER LXIII. LADY TEMPLE TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT. FORGIVE me, dear Mrs. Blunt, if I have no sooner performed my promise of writing to you: but I need not beg pardon, since you will easily excuse it; for I fear my letters will have nothing in them entertaining, and I cannot flatter myself that I have any share in your friendship, since happy Mrs. Moore is my rival. With this melancholy reflection, I had once resolved never to write; but when I considered, that perhaps you would sometimes make me happy by your letters, I was no longer in suspense what to do, but resolved to write till your silence forbids me. I do not hear much news yet; the town is going into mourning for six months for the prince's sister, in cloth and Norwich stuff. I suppose you hear that pretty Mrs. Foresthur (qu. Forrester) is the new Maid of Honour, and that my Lord Dorset is married to Jenny Roach, a common woman he has kept. They say she is ugly, but has a great deal of wit. We have a new play-house a Dear building, and a new actor, which people like mightily. I wish any thing could bring you to town. Madam, Your very humble servant, C. TEMPLE. My very humble service to Mrs. Blount. If you do me the favour to write, direct for me at Mama's, in Golden Square, London. November 7th, 1704. THE early taste of Pope for the productions of the fine arts, and particularly of painting, induced him to form an acquaintance with the most celebrated professors of the times, with whom he lived on terms of the most friendly intimacy, and maintained an occasional epistolary intercourse. As the letters that passed between Pope and them bear a sort of relation to a common subject, it has been thought proper to separate them from the miscellaneous classes in which they were dispersed in the preceding editions, and to unite them under one head. Warburton informs us, that Pope used to say, "he had an acquaintance with three eminent painters, all men of ingenuity, but without common sense. Ínstead of valuing themselves on their performances in their own art, where they had merit, the one was deep in military architecture, without mathematics; the other in the doctrine of fate, without philosophy; and the third in the translation of Don Quixote, without Spanish." The first of these was Sir Godfrey Kneller, the second Richardson, and the third Jervas. LETTERS TO AND FROM MR. JERVAS, SIR GODFREY KNELLER, AND MR. JONATHAN RICHARDSON. LETTER I. TO MR. JERVAS'. July 25, 1714. I HAVE no better excuse to offer you, that I have omitted a task naturally so pleasing to me as conversing upon paper with you, but that my time and eyes have been wholly employed upon Homer, whom, I almost fear, I shall find but one way of imitating, which is, in his blindness. I am perpetually afflicted with headaches, that very much affect my sight, and indeed since my coming hither I have scarce passed an hour agreeably, except that in which I read your letter. I would seriously have you think, you have no man who more truly knows to place a right value on your friendship, than he who least deserves it on all other accounts than his due sense of it. But, let me tell you, you can Although the acquaintance between Pope and Jervas probably commenced with the former taking instructions from the latter in painting, yet it soon increased to a friendly intimacy, insomuch that there were few persons to whom Pope wrote with greater confidence or with greater pleasure. In fact Jervas appears to have been no less estimable as a man than as an artist; and the memory of the friend of Addison and Pope will live, when the works of the painter will probably be forgotten. hardly guess what a task you undertake, when you profess yourself my friend; there are some Tories who will take you for a Whig, some Whigs who will take you for a Tory, some Protestants who will esteem you a rank Papist, and some Papists who will account you a heretic. I find, by dear experience, we live in an age, where it is criminal to be moderate; and where no one man can be allowed to be just to all men. The notions of right and wrong are so far strained, that perhaps to be in the right so very violently may be of worse consequence than to be easily and quietly in the wrong. I really wish all men so well, that, I am satisfied, but few can wish me so; but if those few are such as tell me they do, I am content, for they are the best people I know. While you believe me what I profess as to religion, I can bear any thing the bigoted may say; while Mr. Congreve likes my poetry, I can endure Dennis, and a thousand more like him; while the most honest and moral of each party think me no ill man, I can easily bear that the most violent and mad of all parties rise up to throw dirt at me. I must expect an hundred attacks upon the publication of my Homer. Whoever in our times would be a professor of learning above his fellows, ought at the very first to enter the world with the constancy and resolution of a primitive Christian, and be prepared to suffer all sort of public persecution. It is certainly to be lamented, that if any man does but endeavour to distinguish himself, or gratify others by his studies, he is immediately treated as a common enemy, instead of being looked upon as a common friend; and assaulted as generally as if his whole design were to prejudice the state or ruin the public. I will venture to say, no man ever rose to any degree of perfection in writing but through obstinacy and an inveterate re |