May 10, 1708.

YOU talk of Fame and Glory, and of the great Men of Antiquity: Pray tell me, what are all your great dead Men, but fo many little living Letters? What a vaft Reward is here for all the Ink wafted by Writers, and all the Blood fpilt by Princes? There was in old time one Severus, a Roman Emperor. I dare fay you never call'd him by any other Name in your Life: and yet in his days he was ftyl'd Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, Auguftus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What a prodigious Waste of Letters has Time made! What a Number have here dropp'd off, and left the poor furviving Seven unattended! For my own part, Four are all I have to take Care for; and I'll be judg'd by you if any Man could live in lefs Compass? except it were one Monfieur D. and one Romulus *But thefe, contray to the common Calamity, came, in process of time, to be call'd Monfieur Boileau Defpreaux, and Romulus Threepoints. Well, Sir, for the future, I'll drown all high Thoughts in the Lethe of Cowflip-Wine; as for Fame, Renown, Reputation, take 'em, Critics!

**

Tradam protervis in mare Criticum.

Ventis

If ever I feek for Immortality here, may I be dd! for there's not fo much Danger in a Poet's being damn'd :

Damnation follows Death in other Men,
But your damn'd Poet lives and writes agen.

November

November 1, 1708.

I Have been fo well fatisfy'd with the Country ever fince I faw you, that I have not fo much as once thought of the Town, or enquir'd of any one in it befides Mr Whycherley and yourself. And from him I understand of your Journey this Summer into Leicestershire; from whence I guess you are return'd by this time, to your old Apartment in the Widow's Corner, to your old Business of comparing Critics, and reconciling Commentators; and to the old Diverfions of a lofing Game at Picquet with the Ladies, and a half Play, or a quarter of a Play, at the Theatre; where you are none of the malicious Audience, but the chief of amorous Spectators; and for the Infirmity of one * Senfe which there for the moft part could only ferve to disgust you, enjoy the Vigour of another which ravishes you.

You know when one Senfe is fuppreft,
It but retires into the reft.

(According to the poetical, not the learned, Dod well; who has done one thing worthy of eternal Memory; wrote two Lines in his Life that are not Nonfenfe)! So you have the Advantage of being entertain'd with all the Beauty of the Boxes, without being troubled with any of the Dulnefs of the Stage. You are fo good a Critic, that 'tis the greatest Happiness of the modern Poets that you do not hear their Works; and next, that you are not fo arrant a Critic, as to damn them (like the reft) without hearing. But now I talk of thofe Critics, I have good News to tell you concerning myself, for which I expect you should con

gratulate with me: It is, that beyond all my Expectations, and far above my Demerits, I have been moft mercifully repriev'd by the fovereign Power of Jacob Tonfon, from being brought forth to public Punishment; and refpited from time to time from the Hands of thofe barbarous Executioners of the Muses, whom I was just now fpeaking of. It often happens, that guilty Poets, like other guilty Criminals, when once they are known and proclaim'd, deliver themselves into the Hands of Juftice, only to prevent others from doing it more to their Difadvantage; and not out of any Ambition to fpread their Fame, by being executed in the Face of the World, which is a Fame but of fhort continuance. That Poet were a happy Man who cou'd but obtain a Grant to preferve his for ninety-nine Years; for thofe Names very rarely laft fo many Days, which are planted either in Jacob Tonfon's, or the Ordinary of Newgate's Mifcellanies.

I have an hundred things to fay to you, which shall be deferr'd till I have the Happiness of seeing you in Town; for the Seafon now draws on, that invites every body thither. Some of them I had communicated to you by Letters before this, if I had not been uncertain where you pass'd your Time the last Season: So much fine Weather, I doubt not, has given you all the Pleasure you could defire from the Country, and your own Thoughts the beft Company in it. But nothing could allure Mr Wycherley to our Foreft; he continu'd (as you told me long fince he would) an obftinate Lover of the Town, in fpite of Friendship and fair Weather. Therefore henceforward, to all thofe confiderable Qualities I know you poffefs'd of, I fhall add that of Prophecy. But I ftill believe Mr Wycherley's Intentions were good, and am fatisfy'd that he promifes nothing but with a real Defign to perform it:

how

how much foever his other excellent Qualities are above my Imitation, his Sincerity, I hope, is not; and it is with the utmoft that I am,

Sir, &c.

I

Jan. 22, 1708-9..

Had fent you the inclos'd * Papers before this Time, but that I intended to have brought them myfelf, and afterwards cou'd find no Opportunity of fending them without fufpicion of their mifcarrying; not that they are of the leaft Value, but for fear fomebody might be foolish enough to imagine them fo, and inquifitive enough to discover those Faults which I (by your help) wou'd correct. I therefore beg the Favour of you to let them go no farther than your Chamber, and to be very free of your Remarks in the Margins, not only in regard to the accuracy, but to the fidelity of the Tranflation; which I have not had time of late to compare with it's Original. And I defire you to be the more fevere, as it is much more criminal for me to make another speak Nonfenfe, than to do it in my own proper Perfon. For your better help in comparing, it may be fit to tell you, that this is not an entire Verfion of the first Book. There is an Omiffion from the 168th Line-am murmura ferpunt plebis agenorea-to the 312th-Interea patriis olim

*This was a Tranflation of the first Book of Statius, done when the Author was but 14 Years old, as appears by an Advertisement before the first Edition of it in a Mifcellany publish'd by B. Lintot, 8vo, 1711.

vagus

vagns exul ab oris (between thefe * two, Statius has a Description of the Council of the Gods, and a Speech of Jupiter; which contain a peculiar Beauty and Majefty, and were left out for no other reason, but because the Confequence of this Machine appears not till the fecond Book). The Translation goes on from thence to the Words Hic vero ambobus rabiem fortuna cruentam, where there is an odd Account of a Battle at fifty-cuffs between the two Princes on a very flight Occafion, and at a Time when one would think the fatigue of their Journey in fo tempestuous a Night, might have render'd them very unfit for fuch a Scuffle. This I had actually tranflated, but was very ill fatisfied with it, even in my own Words, to which an Author cannot but be partial enough of Confcience; it was therefore omitted in this Copy, which goes on above eighty Lines farther, at the Words-Hic primum luftrare oculis, &c.-to the End of the Book.

You will find, I doubt not, that Statius was none of the discreetest Poets, tho' he was the best Verfifier next Virgil: In the very Beginning he unluckily betrays his Ignorance in the Rules of Poetry, (which Horace had already taught the Romans) when he asks his Mufe, where to begin his Thebaid, and seems to doubt whether it should not be ab ovo Ledao? When he comes to the Scene of his Poem, and the Prize in dispute between the Brothers, he gives us a very mean Opinion of it-Pugna eft de paupere regno.-Very different from the Conduct of his Mafter Virgil, who at the Entrance of his Poem inform his Reader of the Greatness of it's Subject, Tante molis erat Romanam condere Gentem.

* These he fince tranflated, and they are extant in the printed Verfion.

[Boffu