Fray, and I hope all your Undertakings will turn to the better Account for it.

You fee how I prefume on your Friendship in taking all this Freedom with you, but I already fancy that we have lived many Years together, in an unreserved Converfation, and that we may do many more, is the fincere Wifh of

Your, &c.

Mr POPE to Mr ADDISON.

YOUR laft is the more obliging, as it hints at fome little Niceties in my Conduct, which your Candour and Affection prompt you to recommend to me, and which (fo trivial as things of this Nature feem) are yet of no flight Confequence, to People whom every Body talks of, and every Body as he pleafes. Tis a fort of Tax that attends an Eftate in Parnaffus, which is often rated much higher than in Proportion to the fmall Poffeffion an Author holds. For indeed an Author who is once come upon the Town, is enjoy'd without being thanked for the Pleafure, and fometimes ill-treated by thofe very Perfons that first debauch'd him. Yet to tell you the bottom of my Heart, I am no way difpleas'd that I have offended the Violent of all Parties already; and at the fame Time I affure you confcientioufly, I feel not the leaft Malevolence or Refentment against any of those who mifreprefent me, or are diffàtisfied with me.

This Frame of Mind is fo eafy, that I am perfectly content with my Condition.

As I hope and would flatter myfelf, that you know me and my Thoughts fo entirely as never to be mistaken in either, fo 'tis a Pleasure to me that you guess'd fo right in regard to the Author of that Guardian

Guardian you mentioned. But I am forry to find it has taken Air that I have some hand in those Papers because I write fo very few as neither to deserve the Credit of fuch a Report with fome People, nor the Difrepute of it with others. An honeft Jacobite fpoke to me the Senfe or Nonfenfe of the weak Part of his Party very fairly, that the good People ,took it ill of me, that I writ with Steele, tho' upon never fo indifferent Subjects.- This I know you will laugh at as well as I do: Yet I doubt not but many little Calumniators and Perfons of fowre Difpofitions will take Occafion hence to bespatter me. I confefs I fcorn narrow Souls, of all Parties, and if I renounce my Reafon in religious Matters, I'll hardly do it in any other.

I can't imagine whence it comes to pass that the few Guardians I have written are fo generally known for mine; that in particular which you mention. I never difcovered to any Man but the Publifher, 'till very lately: Yet almost every Body I met told me of it.

The true Reafon that Mr Steele laid down the Paper, was a Quarrel between him and Jacob Tonfon. He flood engaged to his Bookfeller, in Articles of Penalty, for all the Guardians; and by defifting two Days, and altering the Title of the Paper to that of the Englishman, was quit of his Obligation: Thefe Papers being printed by Buckley..

As to his taking a more politic Turn, I cannot any way enter into that Secret, nor have I been let into it, any more than into the reft of his Politics. Tho' 'tis faid, he will take into thefe Papers alfo several Subjects of the politic Kind, as before: But I affure you as to myfelf, I have quite done with 'em, for the Future. The little I have done, and the great Refpect I bear Mr Steele, as a Man of Wit, has rendered me a fufpected Whig to fom e ofthe Violent,

but (as old Dryden faid before me) 'tis not the Violent I defign to please.

I generally employ the Mornings in Painting with Mr Jervas; and the Evenings in the Converfation of fuch, as I think can moft improve my Mind, of whatever Party or Denomination they are. I ever muft fet the higheft Value upon Men of truly great, that is, honeft, Principles, with equal Capacities. The best way I know of overcoming Calumny and Mifconftruction, is by a vigorous Perfeverance in every thing we know to be right, and a total Neg lect of all that can enfue from it. "Tis partly from this Maxim that I depend upon your Friendship, because I believe it will do juftice to my Intention in every thing; and give me leave to tell you, that (as the World goes) this is no fmall Affurance I repofe in you. I am

Your, &c.

ΙΗ

To the fame.

DEC. 14. 1713.

HAVE been lying in wait for my own Imagination, this Week and more, and watching what Thoughts came up in the Whirl of the Fancy, that, were worth communicating to you in a Letter. But I am at length convinc'd that my rambling Head can produce nothing of that fort; fo I muft e'en be contented with telling you the old Story, that I love you heartily. I have often found by Experience, that Nature and Truth, tho' never fo low or vulgar, are yet pleafing when, openly and artlessly represented; it would be diverting to me,

See Mr Pope's Epistle to him in Verfe, writ about this time.

to

to read the very Letters of an Infant, could it write it's innocent Ínconfiftencies and Tautologies just as it thought 'em. This makes me hope a letter from me will not be unwelcome to you, when I am confcious I write with more unrefervednefs than ever. Man wrote, or perhaps talk'd to another. I truft your good Nature with the whole range of my Follies, and really love you fo well, that I would rather you fhould pardon me than esteem me, fince one is an act of Goodness and Benevolence, the other a kind of conftrained Deference.

You can't wonder my Thoughts are scarce confiftent, when I tell you how they are diftracted. Ev'ry Hour of my Life, my Mind is ftrangly divided; this Minute perhaps I am above the Stars, with a thousand Syftems round about me, looking forward into a vaft Abyss, and lofing my whole Comprehenfion in the boundless space of Creation, in dialogues with IV and the Aftronomers;' the next Moment I am below all Trifles, grovelling with T- - in the very Center of Nonfenfe. Now I am recreated with the brisk Sallies and quick turns of Wit, which Mr Steele in his livelieft and freest Humours darts about him; and now levelling my Application to the infignificant Obfervations and quirks of Grammar of Mr and D

Good God! What an incongruous animal is Man? How unfettled is his best Part, his Soul; and how changing and variable in his Frame of Body? The conftancy of the one fhook by every Notion, the Temperament of the other affected by every blaft of Wind! What is Man altogether, but one mighty Inconfiftency! Sickness and Pain is the lot of one half of us; Doubt and Fear the Portion of the other! What a Buftle we make about paffing our. Time, when all our fpace is but a Point? What Aims and Ambitions are crowded into this little inftant

inftant of our Life, which (as Shakespear finely words it) is rounded with a Sleep? Our whole extent of Being no more, in the Eyes of him who gave it, than a scarce perceptible moment of Duration. Thofe Animals whofe circle of living is limited to three or four Hours, as the Naturalifts affure us, are yet as long-lived and poffefs as wide a Scene of Action as Man, if we confider him with an Eye to all Space, and all Eternity. Who knows what

Plots, what Atchievements a Mite may perform in his Kingdom of a grain of Duft, within his Life of fome Minutes? And of how much lefs Confideration than even this, is the Life of Man in the fight of that God, who is from Ever, and for Ever!

Who that thinks in this Train, but muft fee the World and it's contemptible Grandeurs leffen before him at every Thought? 'Tis enough to make one remain ftupify'd, in a Poize of Inaction, void of all Defires, of all Designs, of all Friendships.

But we must return (thro' our very Condition of being) to our narrow felves, and those things that affect our Selves; our Paffions, our Interests, flow in upon us, and unphilofophize us into meer Mortals. For my part, I never return so much into my felf, as when I think of you, whofe Friendship is one of the best Comforts I have for the Infignificancy my self. felf. I am

of

Your, &c.

To the fame.

JAN. 30, 1713-4..

YOUR Letter found me very bufy in my grand Undertaking, to which I must wholly give myfelf up for fome time, unless when I fnatch an Hour

to