The Works of Alexander Pope Efq. Volume III Being the Second of His Letters. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1751. Excerpt: ... LETTER XLIV. To the same. IT is hardly possible to tell you the joy your pencil gave me, in giving me another friend, so much the same and which (alas for mortality ) will out-last the other. Posterity will, thro' your means, see the man whom it will for ages honour3, vindicate, and applaud, when envy is no more, and when (as I have already said in the Essay to which you are so partial) Thesons Jhatt blujh their fathers were his foes. That Essay has many faults, but the poem you sent me has but one, and that I can easily forgive. Yet I would not have it printed for the world, and yet I would not have it kept unprinted neither--but all in good time. I'm glad you publish your Milton. B--ly will be angry at you, and at me too shortly for what Lord Bolingbroke. I could I could not help, a Satyrical Poem on Verbal Criticism by Mr. Mallet, which he has inscribed to me, but the poem itself is good (another cause of anger to any Critic.) As for myself, I resolve to go on in my quiet, calm, moral course, taking no sort of notice of man's anger, or woman's scandal, with Virtue in my eyes, and Truth upon my tongue. Adieu. LETTER XLV. To Mr. Bethel. Aug. 9, 1733. YO U might well think me negligent or forgetful of you, if true friendship and sincere esteem were to be measured by common forms and compliments. The truth is, I could not write then, without saying something of my own condition, and of my loss of so old and so deserving a parent, which really would have troubled you; or I must have kept a silence upon that head, which would not have suited that freedom and sincere opening of the heart which is due to you from me. I am now pretty well; but my home is uneasy to me still, and I am therefore wandering about all this summer. I was but four days at Twickenham ...