those who possess cannot but like themselves the better for and it is your misfortune to have them all!

Thirdly, it is insupportable impudence and lying in you, to pretend, as you do, to have no passion or tendency to love and good-nature. For can any thing be so preposterous, as to say you care for nobody, at the same time that you oblige and please every body?

For these, and all other your grievous offences, the Lord afford you his mercy, as I do heartily absolve you. In nomine, &c.

Mr. Gay was your servant yesterday: I believe to-day he may be Mrs. Lepell's.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO MARTHA AND TERESA BLOUNT.

DEAR LADIES,

(1716.)

THE minute I find there is no hope of you, I fly to the wood. It is as fit for me to leave the world, as for you to stay in it; and to prefer a wood to any acquaintance or company, as for you to prefer any cousin, even the gravest relation you have, to a wood. Perhaps you may think your visit as melancholy as my retirement: if you have not as much time to think as I shall have, you will have more to pray, which some think as

melancholy. What I shall gather from thence I know not, except nuts, which I believe Gay and I shall oftener crack, than jokes. But you shall hear more of our life there, when we have experienced it longer.

I send this letter to answer a few friendly questions you have made. My mother is, and has been, in as good health as I have known her these many years. She is mighty well acquainted with all Lord Harcourt's family-children and all. I shall not leave her seven days together, whatever excursions I make. I have felt my arm more within these three days than I did when I left you. I have gone a good way in Homer every day I was at Stanton-Harcourt. I will shortly send you a particular description of that place. It was no small grief to me that the fine nectarines there were not ripe enough by a fortnight to send you Should any thing keep you longer in town than a week, or bring you back in three, I could accommodate you with very good ones upon the least hint. I have not forgot the strong beer. I writ to Mr. Caryll some posts ago, and told him he ought to treat you like the husbandman in the Scripture,-give you as much as those who came earliest, since you had borne the sweat and labour of the whole summer for his sake. I write very dully. I must send a better letter next; but I snatch a quarter of an hour for this, just while our horses bait before our journey. It was time for me to get away a-while, for all Oxford was

coming upon me, with Duke Hamilton at the head of them. I had done a whole book of Homer before any creature knew I was here.

I once more thank you both for your letters. Pray continue to oblige me as often as ever you can. Those I send shall come free to London; but may not I as well send sometimes directly to Grinstead with franks? Yours, if given by George to Jervas's, cannot fail of being sent right. Mr. Gay is much yours, I always so.

God bless you, or I must be an ill Christian.

LETTER XXXIV.

MR. POPE TO THE MISS BLOUNTS.

Nov. 1717.

My poor Father died last night.-Believe, since I do not forget you this moment, I never shall. A. POPE.*

LETTER XXXV.

TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT.

As the weather proves very blustering and uncertain, we would by no means give you all the

* This letter may serve to shew "the nature of Pope's feelings," better than all that Mr. Bowles has been able to allege against them. It breathes a sentiment perfectly consistent with the purest friendship; but could not possibly, at such a time, have been addressed to two women, for either one or both of whom he entertained a criminal passion.

trouble or the ceremony of taking leave of us. But my mother will wait upon you in a chariot soon after dinner, if you are not otherwise engaged. I am engaged to be with Mr. Craggs till five or six; after which I shall be very glad to pass the evening with you, if you have nothing to do. But if you prefer coming hither, the same chariot may carry you back. I beg you to do just what is most convenient to yourselves; for ceremony is to no purpose, I think, either with those that are friends, or with those that are not. We are very much your humble servants.

MADAM,

LETTER XXXVI.

TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT.

Twickenham, Dec. 11, 1720.

I SEND you this Christmas present, which I hope you will like, though it is not so properly brawn as I wish, for want of horn. I cannot be positive that it will be any recommendation to your goût, to say it has the pure country taste. I cannot tell but you may prefer even town brawn to country brawn.

I found our house exactly like Noah's ark, in every thing, except that there is no propagation of the species in it. As to the waters, we ride safe above them as yet. The prospect is prodigiously fine. It is just like an arm of the sea; and the flood over my grass-plot, embraced between the

two walls whose tops are only seen, looks like an open bay to the terrace. The opposite meadow, where you so often walked, is covered with sails; and, not to flatter you, I believe the flowers in it next spring will be rather attributed to the production of the waters, than of your footsteps, which will be very unpoetical after all. We see a new river behind Kingston, which was never beheld before; and that our own house may not be void of wonders, we pump up gudgeons, through the pipe in the kitchen, with our water. Having finished my description, I conclude,

Your, &c.

MADAM,

LETTER XXXVII.

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

THIS is purely to give you the satisfaction of knowing, that I have not been unmindful of your affairs, and that I shall omit no occasion of doing what you order me. I find, from those whose judgment I myself most depend upon, that it is thought the South Sea will rather fall than rise, toward the sitting of the parliament; and upon this belief I have myself kept a thousand five hundred pounds lying by me, to buy at such a juncture. The general opinion is, that the parliament will tax the funds; and if so, one may certainly make advantages of money then in one's hands, which will more than answer its lying dead these two months.