Page images
PDF
EPUB

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

EDWARD BLOUNT, ESQ.

FROM 1714 TO 1725.

THIS correspondence between Pope and Mr. Blount is rather of a friendly than of a literary nature, and, like that with Mr. Bethell and others, shews that Pope was not led to form his connexions by the rank, talents, or celebrity of the parties; but that his nearest intimacies were chosen amongst those, whose chief qualifications were probity, good sense, and sincerity, whose tastes and opinions coincided with his own, and who to the endowments of the mind united the better qualities of the heart.

Mr. Blount was descended from a Catholic family at MapleDurham, near Reading, in Berkshire, and was the brother of Teresa and Martha Blount. "Bating his high Tory principles," says Mr. Bowles, "he appears to have been a most amiable, goodnatured, worthy man. His external appearance and open careless manner are well described by Gay, in his Welcome from Greece: Ned Blount advances next, with busy pace,

In haste, but sauntering, careless in his ways." That he was warmly attached to the exiled family sufficiently appears from this correspondence; and although he had no share in the rebellious commotion of 1715, which he condemns with apparent sincerity, yet he soon afterwards thought proper to leave his country, to which he did not return till the lapse of some years had restored it to greater tranquillity, (1723). Before his departure he endeavoured with great earnestness to prevail upon Pope to accompany him. But Pope, whose state of health was always an objection to his travelling, and who had already secured to himself the comforts and conveniences of life, wisely determined to close his days in his native land.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

EDWARD BLOUNT, ESQ.

LETTER I.

MR. POPE TO EDWARD BLOUNT, ESQ.

August 27, 1714. WHATEVER studies on the one hand, or amusements on the other, it shall be my fortune to fall into, I shall be equally incapable of forgetting you in any of them. The task I undertook,* though of weight enough in itself, has had a voluntary increase by the enlarging my design of the notes; and the necessity of consulting a number of books has carried me to Oxford. But I fear, through my Lord Harcourt's and Dr. Clarke's means, I shall be more conversant with the pleasures and company of the place, than with the books and manuscripts of it.

I find still more reason to complain of the negligence of the geographers in their maps of old

*The translation of Homer's Iliad.

Pope.

†The learned and entertaining Mr. Wood, in his discourse on the original genius of Homer, censures the inaccuracies of this map which Pope himself drew, to be prefixed to his Homer. Among other things, he says, "that so capital an error, for in

Greece, since I looked upon two or three more noted names in the public libraries here. But with all the care I am capable of, I have some cause to fear the engraver will prejudice me in a few situations. I have been forced to write to him in so high a style, that, were my epistles intercepted, it would raise no small admiration in an ordinary man. There is scarce an order in it of less importance, than to remove such and such mountains, alter the course of such and such rivers, place a large city on such a coast, and raze another in another country. I have set bounds to the sea, and said to the land, Thus far shalt thou advance and no further.* In the mean time, I, who talk and command at this rate, am in danger of losing my horse, and stand in some fear of a country justice.† To disarm me indeed may be but prudential, considering what armies I have at present on foot, and in my service; a hundred thousand Grecians are no contemptible body; for all that I can tell, they may be as formidable as four thousand priests; and

stance, as that of discharging the Scamander into the Egean sea, instead of the Hellespont, is a striking specimen of the careless and superficial manner in which this matter has been treated." And he adds, "the translator is as inconsistent, sometimes, with his own incorrect map, as both he and his map are with the real situation of the ground." These remarks are more valuable, because they were made by an accurate observer, on the spot, with Homer in his hand. Warton.

* This relates to the map of ancient Greece, laid down by our author in his observations on the second Iliad. Pope. † Some of the laws were, at this time, put in force against the Warburton.

papists.

they seem proper forces to send against those in Barcelona. That siege deserves as fine a poem as the Iliad, and the machining part of poetry would be the juster in it, as, they say, the inhabitants expect angels from heaven to their assistance. May I venture to say, who am a papist, and say to you who are a papist, that nothing is more astonishing to me, than that people so greatly warmed with a sense of liberty, should be capable of harbouring such weak superstition, and that so much bravery and so much folly can inhabit the same breasts?

I could not but take a trip to London on the death of the Queen,* moved by the common curiosity of mankind, who leave their own business to be looking upon other men's. I thank God, that, as for myself, I am below all the accidents of statechanges by my circumstances, and above them by my philosophy. Common charity of man to man and universal good-will to all, are the points I have most at heart; and I am sure, those are not to be broken for the sake of any governors or government. I am willing to hope the best, and what I more wish than my own or any particular man's advancement, is, that this turn may put an end entirely to the divisions of Whig and Tory; that the parties may love each other as well as I love them both, or at least hurt each other as little as I would either: and that our own people may live as quietly as we shall certainly let theirs; that is to say, that want of power itself 1st August, 1714.

**

« PreviousContinue »