choly reflection, I had once resolved never to write; but when I considered, that perhaps you would sometimes make me happy by your letters, I was no longer in suspense what to do, but resolved to write till your silence forbids me. I do not hear much news yet; the town is going into mourning for six months for the prince's sister, in cloth and Norwich stuff. I suppose you hear that pretty Mrs. Foresthur (qu. Forrester) is the new Maid of Honour, and that my Lord Dorset is married to Jenny Roach, a common woman he has kept. They say she is ugly, but has a great deal of wit. We have a new play-house a-building, and a new actor, which people like mightily. I wish any thing could bring you to town. Dear Madam, Your very humble servant, C. TEMPLE. My very humble service to Mrs. Blount. If you do me the favour to write, direct for me at Mama's, in Golden Square, London. THE early taste of Pope for the productions of the fine arts, and particularly of painting, induced him to form an acquaintance with the most celebrated professors of the times, with whom he lived on terms of the most friendly intimacy, and maintained an occasional epistolary intercourse. As the letters that passed between Pope and them bear a sort of relation to a common subject, it has been thought proper to separate them from the miscellaneous classes in which they were dispersed in the preceding editions, and to unite them under one head. Warburton informs us, that Pope used to say, "he had an acquaintance with three eminent painters, all men of ingenuity, but without common sense. Instead of valuing themselves on their performances in their own art, where they had merit, the one was deep in military architecture, without mathematics; the other in the doctrine of fate, without philosophy; and the third in the translation of Don Quixote, without Spanish." The first of these was Sir Godfrey Kneller, the second Richardson, and the third Jervas. LETTERS TO AND FROM MR. JERVAS, SIR GODFREY KNELLER, AND MR. JONATHAN RICHARDSON. LETTER I. TO MR. JERVAS.* July 25, 1714. I HAVE no better excuse to offer you, that I have omitted a task naturally so pleasing to me as conversing upon paper with you, but that my time and eyes have been wholly employed upon Homer, whom, I almost fear, I shall find but one way of imitating, which is, in his blindness. I am perpetually afflicted with head-achs, that very much affect my sight, and indeed since my coming hither I have scarce passed an hour agreeably, except that * Although the acquaintance between Pope and Jervas probably commenced with the former taking instructions from the latter in painting, yet it soon increased to a friendly intimacy, insomuch that there were few persons to whom Pope wrote with greater confidence or with greater pleasure. In fact Jervas appears to have been no less estimable as a man than as an artist; and the memory of the friend of Addison and Pope will live, when the works of the painter will probably be forgotten. |