LETTER VIII. Oct. 26th, 1705. I HAVE now changed the scene from the town to the country; from Will's coffee-house to Windsor Forest. I find no other difference than this, betwixt the common town-wits, and the downright country-fools, that the first are pertly in the wrong, with a little more flourish and gaiety; and the last neither in the right nor the wrong, but confirmed in a stupid settled medium betwixt both. However, methinks, these are most in the right, who quietly and easily resign themselves over to the gentle reign of dulness, which the wits must do at last, though after a great deal of noise and resistance. Ours are a sort of modest inoffensive people, who neither have sense nor pretend to any, but enjoy a jovial sort of dulness: They are commonly known in the world by the name of honest, civil gentlemen: They live much as they ride, at random; a kind of hunting life, pursuing with earnestness and hazard something not worth the catching; never in the way, nor out of it. I can't but prefer solitude to the company of all these; for though a man's self may possibly be the worst fellow to converse with in the world, yet one would think the company of a person whom we have the greatest regard to and affection for, could not be very unpleasant. As a man in love with a mistress, desires no conversation but hers, so a man in love with himself (as most men are) may be best pleased with his own. Besides, if the truest and most useful knowledge be the knowledge of ourselves, solitude conducing most to make us look into ourselves, should be the most instructive state of life. We see nothing more commonly, than men, who, for the sake of the circumstantial part and mere out side of life, have been half their days rambling out of their nature, and ought to be sent into solitude to study themselves over again. People are usually spoiled, instead of being taught, at their coming into the world; whereas, by being more conversant with obscurity, without any pains, they would naturally follow what they were meant for. In a word, if a man be a coxcomb, solitude is his best school; and if he be a fool, it is his best sanctuary. These are good reasons for my own stay here, but I wish I could give you any for your coming hither, except that I earnestly invite you. And yet I can't help saying I have suffered a great deal of discontent that you do not come, though I so little merit that you should. I must complain of the shortness of your last. Those who have most wit, like those who have most money, are generally most sparing of either. LETTER IX. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Nov. 5, 1705. YOURS of the 26th of October I have received, as I have always done yours, with no little satisfaction, and am proud to discover by it, that you find fault with the shortness of mine, which I think the best excuse for it: And though they (as you say) who have most wit or money are most sparing of either; there are some who appear poor to be thought rich, and are poor, which is my case. I cannot but rejoice that you have undergone so much discontent for want of my company: But if you have a mind to punish me for my fault (which I could not help), de fer your coming to town, and you will do it effectually. But I know your charity always exceeds your revenge, so that I will not despair of seeing you, and, in return to your invititing me to your forest, invite you to my forest, the town; where the beasts that inhabit, tame or wild, of long ears or horns, pursue one another either out of love or hatred. You may have the pleasure to see one pack of blood-hounds pursue another herd of brutes, to bring each other to their fall, which is their whole sport: Or if you affect a less bloody chace, you may see a pack of spaniels, called lovers, in a hot pursuit of a two-legged vixen, who only flies the whole loud pack to be singled out by one dog, who runs mute to catch her up the sooner from the rest, as they are making a noise to the loss of their game. In fine, this is the time for all sorts of sport in the town, when those of the country cease; therefore leave your forests of beasts for ours of brutes, called men, who now in full cry (packed by the court or country) run down in the House of Commons a deserted horned beast of the court, to the satisfaction of their spectators: Besides, (more for your diversion,) you may see not only the two great play-houses of the nation, those of the lords and commons, in dispute with one another; but the two other play-houses in high contest, because the members of one house are removed up to t'other, as it is often done by the court for reasons of state. Insomuch that the lower houses, I mean the play-houses, åre going to act tragedies on one another without doors, and the sovereign is put to it (as it often happens in the other two houses) to silence one or both, to keep peace between them. Now I have told you all the news of the town. I am, etc. LETTER X. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Feb. 5, 1705-6. I HAVE received your kind letter, with my paper to Mr. Dryden corrected. I own you have made more of it by making it less, as the Dutch are said to burn half the spices they bring home, to inhance the price of the remainder, so to be greater gainers by their loss (which is indeed my case now). You have pruned my fading laurels of some superfluous, sapless and dead branches, to make the remainder live the longer; thus, like your master Apollo, you are at once a poet and a physician. you to Now, Sir, as to my impudent invitation of the town, your good nature was the first cause of my confident request; but excuse me, I must (I see) say no more upon this subject, since I find you a little too nice to be dealt freely with; though you have given me some encouragement to hope, our friendship might be without shyness, or criminal modesty ; for a friend, like a mistress, though he is not to be mercenary, to be true, yet ought not to refuse a friend's kindness because it is small or trivial: I have told you (I think) what a Spanish lady said to her poor poetical gallant, that a queen, if she had to do with a groom, would expect a mark of his kindness from him, though it were but his curry-comb. But you and I will dispute this matter when I am so happy as to see you here; and perhaps it is the only dispute in which I might hope to have the better of you. Now, Sir, to make you another excuse for my boldness in inviting you to town, I designed to leave with you some more of my papers (since these return so much better out of your hands than they went from mine); for I intended (as I told you formerly) to spend a month or six weeks this summer, near you in the country. You may be assured there is nothing I desire so much, as an improvement of your friendship. LETTER XI. April 10, 1706. BY one of your's of the last month, you desire me e to select, if possible, some things from the first volume of your Miscellanies, which may be altered so as to appear again. I doubted your meaning in this; whether it was to pick out the best of those verses (as those on the Idleness of business, on Ignorance, on Laziness, etc.) to make the method and numbers exact, and avoid repetitions? For though (upon reading them upon this occasion) I believe, they might receive such an alteration with advantage; yet they would not be changed so much, but any would know them for the same at first sight. Or if you mean to improve the worst pieces? which are such, as, to render them very good, would require great addition, and almost the entire new writing of them. Or, lastly, if you mean the middle sort, as the Songs and Love-verses? For these will need only to be shortened, to omit repetition; the words remaining very little different from what they were before. Pray let me know your mind in this, for I am utterly at a loss. Yet I have tried what I could do to some of the songs, and the poems on Laziness, and Ignorance, but can't (even in my own partial judgment) think my alterations much to the purpose. that I must needs desire you would apply your care wholly at present to those which are yet unpublished, of which there are more than enough to make a * Printed in folio, in the year 1704 So |