shall take your papers out of my hands into your own, and that no alterations may be made but when both of us are prefent; when you may be fatisfied with every blot, as well as every addition, and nothing be put upon the papers but what you fhall give your own sanction and affent to, at the fame time.

Do not be fo unjust, as to imagine from hence that I would decline any part of this task; on the contrary you know, I have been at the pains of tranfcribing fome pieces, at once to comply with your defire of not defacing the copy, and yet to lose no time in proceeding upon the correction. I will go on the fame way, if you please; though truly it is (as I have often told you) my fincere opinion, that the greater part would make a much better figure as Single Maxims and Reflections in profe, after the manner of your favourite Rochefoucault, than in verfe*: And this, when nothing more is done but marking the repetitions in the margin, will be an easy talk to proceed upon, notwithstanding the bad Me mory you complain of. I am unfeignedly, dear Sir,

Your, etc.

A. POPE.

* Mr. Wycherley lived five years after, to December 1715, but little progrefs was made in this design, through his old age, and the increase of his infirmities. However, fome of the verfes which had been touched by Mr. P. with cccv111 of these Maxims in Profe, were found among his papers, which having the misfortune to fall into the hands of a Mercenary, were published in 1728, in octavo, under the title of the Poithumous Works of William Wycherley, Efq.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

W. WALSH*, Efq.

From the Year 1705 to 1707.

LETTER I.

Mr. WALSH to Mr. WYCHERLEY.

April 20, 1705.

RETURN you the Papers + you favour'd me with, and had fent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you last night myself. I have read them over several times with great fatisfaction. The Preface is very judicious and very learned; and the Verses very tender and easy. The Author feems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken very freely from the ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to fay, that Virgil had written nothing fo

* Of Abberley in Worcestershire, a Gentleman of the Horse in Queen Anne's reign, Author of feveral beautiful pieces in Profe and Verfe, and in the opinion of Mr. Dryden (in his Poftscript to Virgil), the beft Critick of our Nation in his time.

† Mr. Pope's Paftorals.

good at his age*. I fhall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him; and if he will give himfelf the trouble any morning to call at my house, I fhall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this letter. I am, Sir, etc.

LETTER

II.

Mr. WALSH to Mr. POPE.

June 24, 1706.

I RECEIVED the favour of your letter, and shall be very glad of the continuance of a correfpondence by which I am like to be fo great a gainer. I hope, when I have the happiness of seeing you again in London, not only to read over the verfes I have now of but more yours, that you have written fince; for I make no doubt but any one who writes fo well, muft write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the best: I believe the contrary is rather true. I mentioned fomewhat to you in London of a Paftoral Comedy, which I should be glad to hear you had thought upon fince. I find Menage, in his obfervations upon Taffo's Aminta, reckons up fourfcore paftoral Plays in Italian: and in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many pastoral and pifcatory plays, which, I fuppofe, Menage reckons together. I find alfo by Menage, that Taffo is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before him which he himself had never seen, nor indeed have I. But as the Aminta, Paftor Fido, and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli are the three beft, fo, I think, there is no difpute but Aminta is the best of the three: not but that the difcourfes in Paftor Fido are more en

* Sixteen.

tertaining and copious in feveral people's opinion, though not fo proper for pastoral; and the fable of Bonarelli more furprifing. I do not remember many in other languages, that have written in this kind with fuccefs. Racan's Bergeries are much inferior to his lyrick poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the design of pastoral plays to be taken from the Cyclops of Euripides. I am fure there is nothing of this kind in English worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourself. You fee I write to you without any fort of constraint or method, as things come into my head, and therefore ufe the fame freedom with me, who am, etc.

I

LETTER III.

To Mr. WALSH.

Windfor Foreft, July 2, 1706. CANNOT omit the first opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing thofe papers of mine. You have no lefs right to correct me, than the fame hand that rais'd a tree has to prune it. I am convinced as well as you, that one may correct too much; for in poetry, as in painting, a man may lay colours one upon another, till they ftiffen and deaden the piece. Befides, to bestow heightening on every part is monftrous; fome parts ought to be lower than the reft; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, feem all on a level: "Tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grafs, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undiftinguifh'd. I believe too that fometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the firft fqueezing of the grapes makes the finest and

richeft wine.

I have not attempted any thing of a Paftoral Comedy, because, I think, the tafte of our age will not relish a poem of that fort. People feek for what they call wit, on all fubjects, and in all places; not confidering that nature loves truth fo well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing: Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needlefs, but impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majefty in fimplicity, which is far above all the quaintness of wit: infomuch that the criticks have excluded wit from the loftieft poetry, as well as the lowest, and forbid it to the Epick no less than the Paftoral. I fhould certainly displease all those who are charmed with Guarini and Bonarelli, and imitate Taffo not only in the fimplicity of his Thoughts, but in that of the Fable too. If furprising discoveries fhould have place in the ftory of a Pastoral Comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make them the effects of chance than of defign; intrigue not being very confiftent with that innocence, which ought to conflitute a fhepherd's character. There is nothing in all the Aminta (as I remember) but happens by mere accident; unless it be the meeting of Aminta with Sylvia at the fountain, which is the contrivance of Daphne; and even that is the moft fimple in the world: the contrary is obfervable in Pastor Fido, where Corifca is fo perfect a mistress of intrigue, that the plot could not have been brought to pafs without her. I am inclined to think the Pastoral Comedy has another difadvantage, as to the manners: Its general defign is to make us in love with the innocence of a rural life, fo that to introduce fhepherds of a vicious character muft in fome measure debase it; and hence it may come to pass, that even the virtuous characters will not fhine fo much, for want of being oppos'd to their contraries. Thefe thoughts are purely