allways reckon it among the obligations you have been so kind as to lay upon I really intended to have been with you today, but having been dissappointed yesterday of While Colin, forgotten and gone, No more shall be talked of or seen, His ghost shall glide over the green." * From several circumstances, I conclude this to have been written about the middle of 1715. Rowe's Jane Shore' came out during that year, and, from what is said in the letter, I think it not improbable that Pope wrote for him a prologue to that tragedy. This is merely a surmise, but an epilogue coming from the same quarter seems to strengthen the probability of its being correct. †This letter has been attributed, I know not why, to Jervas; the hand writing is quite different from his, and has every re meeting Mr. Selwyn; and going to the Exchequer about my Salary to day, and to Mrs. Howards to meet him, made it too late, so that I made a visit this morning to Mr. Congreve, where I found Lord Cobham; * they both enquired kindly for you, and wished to see you semblance to that of Gay. It also bears internal evidence of having been written by the latter, who, from continually paying court to Mrs. Howard, is more likely to have been the bearer of her message to Pope. The colick, too, was a disorder to which Gay was very subject. *Sir R. Temple, Lord Viscount Cobham, to whom Pope dedicated his first moral essay; he was a bad man, and is represented by the poet as a most amiable character: a true patriot. And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath, "Oh, save my country, Heav'n," shall be your last. Congreve has gone still farther, and has given us additional reason to distrust the evidence of a poet. Having elegantly. described the pursuits of a rural life, and attributed them to Cobham, he continues, For nature, bountiful, in thee has join'd, soon. Mr. Fortescue could not have come with me, but intends the latter end of next week to see you at Twickenham. I have seen our friend. Dean Berkeley,* who was very solicitous about. While thus adorn'd, while thus with virtue crown'd A table free, and elegantly neat, &c. He invites him to visit his retirement, and admonishes him against indulging captiousness, by Not wond'ring at the world's new wicked ways, And Ovid's Golden age is but a dream. Upon which Swift remarks, "I have read my friend Congreve's Verses to Lord Cobham, which end with a vile and false moral, and I remember is not in Horace to Tibullus, which he imitates, "that all times are equally virtuous or vicious;" wherein he differs from all poets, philosophers and Christians, that ever writ." * Dr. Berkeley, then Dean of Derry, and afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, had conceived one of the most noble schemes that ever entered the human mind. He undertook to resign his own lucrative situation in the Church, and go to the Somer Isles, and preside over a college, which he proposed should be founded there, for the instruction of the natives in the Christian religion, and other branches of education. The King your health and welfare. He is now so full of his Bermuda's project, that he hath printed his Proposal, and hath been with the Bishop of London about it. Mrs. Howard desir'd me to tell you, that she hath had a present of Beech mast, wch this year hath been particularly good. When 'tis wanted she would have you send to publicly declared his approbation of it, and a bill concerning it was brought into the lower House: it passed the Lords, and received the Royal Assent. £10,000. was the sum it awarded for the foundation of the establishment, purchasing lands, &c. Every thing seemed to favour it: large private contributions were given the Duke of Grafton, Lord Carteret, and many other distinguished nobles patronized it; and the inventor of it poured forth his poetical predictions in the most sanguine manner. But all this fair visionary good" was blighted: the Minister applied the money to other purposes; and when Bishop Gibson asked Sir Robert Walpole how Berkeley should act, he said, “If you ask me as a Minister, I must say that the 10,000l. shall be paid as soon as possible; but if you require my advice as a friend, I say, let the Doctor come home directly, and give up all his present views." This was told to Berkeley, and he returned from Rhode Island, after having dedicated seven years of his life to an excellent scheme, which had every reasonable prospect of succeeding, and which was at last ruined by the shameful improvidence of one man. After he returned, he was created Bishop of Cloyne, and ended his life in doing good to his fellow creatures. Among other exertions of his piety, he boldly attacked Doctor Halley, whose subtle sophistry has been the destruction of many an unfortunate unbeliever. He died on Sunday evening, January 14, 1753, while hearing a sermon of Doctor Sherlock's, in his own parlour. her. I writ to you yesterday; and am in hopes that Mrs. Pope will soon be so well that you may be able to come to town for a day or so about your business. I really am this evening very much out of order with the Cholick, but I hope a nights rest will relieve me. I wish Mrs. Pope and you all health and happiness, pray give my service to her. LETTER X. DEAR ST. GAY TO POPE. To ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ. att TWITNAM. These I can neglect no opportunity that can give you satisfaction or pleasure. I this instant came from Dr. Arbuthnot, and I found him reliev'd from all the danger of his distemper; * about an hour or two ago, he *****, and is quite free * The illness of Dr. Arbuthnot is alluded to by himself, in a letter to Swift; in which he makes himself merry with the ignorance of some who said that he had been ill of an "Impostor." The complaint was an imposthume in the bowels. |