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Mr POPE to the Earl of

HALIFA X.

My LORD,

Dec. 1, 1714.

IAM oblig'd to you both for the Favours you

have done me, and for those you intend me. I diftruft neither your Will nor your Memory, when it is to do good: and if ever I become troublefome or follicitous, it must not be out of Expectation, but out of Gratitude. Your Lordship may either cause me to live agreeably in the Town, or contentedly in the Country, which is really all the difference I fet between an easy Fortune and a fmall one. It is indeed a high Strain of Generofity in you, to think of making me eafy all my Life, only because I have been fo happy as to divert you fome few Hours: But if I may have leave to add, it is because you think me no Enemy to my native Country, there will appear a better Reason; for I must of confequence be very much, (as I fincerely am)

My Lord, &c.

LETTERS

M. Gucht Sculp

A6William Congreve

LETTERS

OF

Mr POPE to Mr CONGREVE,

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JAN. 16. 1714-15.

ETHINKS when I write to you, I am making a Confeffion, I have got (I can't tell how) fuch a Cuftom of throwing myself out upon Paper without reserve. You were not mistaken in what you judg'd of my Temper of Mind when I writ laft. My Faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no Dispraise to me that they will not. The Cleannefs and Purity of one's Mind is never better prov'd, than in difcovering it's own Faults at firft View: As when a Stream fhows the Dirt at it's bottom, it fhows alfo the Tranfparency of the Water.

My Spleen was not occafion'd, however, by any thing an * abusive, angry Critic could write of me.

*Dennis, who writ an abufive Pamphlet this Year, intituled, Remarks on Mr Pope's Homer.

I take very kindly your heroic manner of Congratulation upon this Scandal; for I think nothing more Honourable, than to be involved in the fame Fate with all the Great and the Good that ever lived; that is, to be envy'd and cenfur'd by bad Writers.

You do no more than answer my Expectations of you, in declaring how well you take my Freedom in fometimes neglecting, as I do, to reply to your Letters fo foon as I ought; thofe who have a right Tafte of the fubftantial Part of Friendship, can wave the Ceremonial. A Friend is the only one that will bear the Omiffion; and one may find who is not fo, by the very Trial of it.

As to any Ánxiety I have concerning the Fate of my Homer, the Care is over with me. The World must be the Judge, and I fhall be the first to confent to the Juftice of it's Judgment, whatever it be. I am not fo arrant an Author, as even to defire, that if I am in the wrong, all Mankind fhould be fo.

I am mightily pleas'd with a Saying of Monfieur Tourreil: When a Man writes, he ought to ani“mate himself with the Thoughts of pleasing all "the World: But he is renounce that Defire or "Hope, the very Moment the Book goes out of "his Hands."

I write this from Binfield, whither I came yefterday, having paft a few Days in my Way with my Lord Bolingbroke: I go to London in three days Time, and will not fail to pay a visit to Mr M—, whom I faw not long fince at my Lord Halifax's. hoped from thence he had fome hopes of Advantage from the prefent Adminiftration: For few People (I think) but I, pay respects to great Men without any Profpects. I am in the fairest Way in the World of being not worth a Groat, being born both a Papist and a Poet.. This puts me in mind of reacknowledging

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