method, as the sprightliness of wit by its despising both. I thank you a thousand times for your repeated invitations to come to Binfield: You will find, it will be as hard for you to get quit of my mercenary kindness to you, as it would be for me to deserve, or return yours: However, it shall be the endeavour of my future life, as it will be to demonstrate myself Your, etc. LETTER XV. Nov. 29, 1707. THE compliments you make me, in regard of any inconsiderable service I could do you, are very unkind, and do but tell me in other words, that my friend has so mean an opinion of me, as to think I expect acknowledgments for trifles; which upon my faith I shall equally take amiss, whether made to myself or to any other. For God's sake (my dear friend) think better of me, and believe I desire no sort of favour so much, as that of serving you more considerably than I have been yet able to do. I shall proceed in this manner with some others of your pieces; but since you desire I would not deface your copy for the future, and only mark the repetitions; I must, as soon as I have marked these, transcribe what is left on another paper; and in that, blot, alter, and add all I can devise, for their improvement. For you are sensible, the omission of repetitions is but one, and the easiest part, of yours and my design; there remaining besides to rectify the method, to connect the matter, and to mend the expression and versification. I will go next upon the poems of Solitude, on the Public, and on the mixt Life; the Bill of Fare, the Praises of Avarice, and some others. I must take notice of what you say of "my pains "to make your dulness methodical;" and of your hint," that the sprightliness of wit despises method." This is true enough, if by wit you mean no more than fancy or conceit; but in the better notion of wit, considered as propriety, surely method is not only necessary for perspicuity and harmony of parts, but gives beauty even to the minute and particular thoughts, which receive an additional advantage from those which precede or follow in their due place. You remember a simile Mr. Dryden used in conversation, of feathers in the crowns of the wild Indians, which they not only choose for the beauty of their colours, but place them in such a manner as to reflect a lustre on each other. I will not disguise any of my sentiments from you; to methodize in your case, is full as necessary as to strike out; otherwise you had better destroy the whole frame, and reduce them into single thoughts in prose, like Rochefoucault, as I have more than once hinted to you. LETTER XVI. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Feb. 28, 1707-8. I HAVE had yours of the 23d of this instant, for which I give you many thanks, since I find by it, that even absence (the usual bane of love or friendship) cannot lessen yours, no more than mine. As to your hearing of my being ill, I am glad, and sorry for the report: in the first place, glad that it was not true; and in the next, sorry that it should give you any disturbance, or concern more than ordinary for me; for which, as well as your concern for my future well-being or life, I think myself most eternally obliged to you; assuring, your concern for either will make me more careful of both. Yet for your sake I love this life so well, that I shall the less think of the other; but it is in your power to ensure my happiness in one and the other, both by your society, and good example, so not only contribute to my felicity here, but hereafter. Now as to your excuse for the plainness of your style, I must needs tell you, that friendship is much more acceptable to a true friend than wit, which is generally false reasoning; and a friend's reprimand often shews more friendship than his compliment: nay love, which is more than friendship, is often seen by our friends correction of our follies or crimes. Upon this test of your friendship I intend to put you when I return to London, and thence to you at Binfield, which, I hope, will be within a month. Next to the news of your good health, I am pleased with the good news of your going to print some of your poems, and proud to be known by them to the public for your friend; who intend (perhaps the same way) to be revenged of you for your kindness; by taking your name in vain in some of my future madrigals: yet so as to let the world know, my love or esteem for you are no more poetic than my talent in scribling. But of all the arts of fiction, I desire to believe I want that of feigning friendship, and that I am sincerely you LETTER XVII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Your, etc. May 13, 1708. I HAVE received yours of the first of May. Your pastoral muse outshines in her modest and natural dress all Apollo's court-ladies, in their more artful, laboured, and costly finery. Therefore I am glad to find by your letter you design your country-beauty of a muse shall appear at court and in public: to outshine all the farded, lewd, confident, affected towndowdies, who aim at being honour'd only to their shame: but her artful innocence (on the contrary) will gain more honour as she becomes public; and, in spite of custom, will bring modesty again into fashion, or at least make her sister-rivals of this age blush for spite, if not for shame. As for my stale, antiquated, poetical puss, whom you would keep in countenance by saying she has once been tolerable, and would yet pass muster by a little licking over; it is true, that (like most vain antiquated jades which have once been passable) she yet affects youthfulness in her age, and would still gain a few admirers (who the more she seeks or labours for their liking, are but more her contemners). Nevertheless she is resolved henceforth to be so cautious as to appear very little more in the world, except it be as an attendant on your muse, or as a foil, not a rival to her wit, or fame: so that let your country-gentlewoman appear when she will in the world, my old worn-out jade of a lost reputation shall be her attendant into it, to procure her admirers; as an old whore, who can get no more friends of her own, bawds for others, to make sport or pleasure yet, one way or other, for mankind. I approve of your making Tonson your muse's introductor into the world, or master of the ceremonies, who had been so long a pimp, or gentleman-usher to the muses. I wish you good fortune; since a man with store of wit, as store of money, without the help of good fortune, will never be popular; but I wish you a great many admirers, which will be some credit to my judgment as well as your wit, who always thought you had a great deal, and am Your, etc. LETTER XVIII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. May 17, 1709. I MUST thank you for a book of your Miscellanies, which Tonson sent me, I suppose, by your order ; and all I can tell you of it is, that nothing has lately been better received by the public than your part of it. You have only displeased the critics by pleasing them too well; having not left them a word to say for themselves, against you and your performances; so that, now your hand is in, you must persevere, till my prophecies of you be fulfilled. In earnest, all the best judges of good sense or poetry, are admirers of yours; and like your part of the book so well, that the rest is liked the worse. This is true upon my word, without compliment: so that your first success will make you for all your life a poet, in spite of wit; for a poet's success at first, like a gamester's fortune at first, is like to make him a loser at last, and to be undone by his good fortune and merit. your But hitherto your Miscellanies have safely run the gauntlet, through all the coffee-houses; which are now entertained with a whimsical new news-paper, called the TATLER, which I suppose you have seen. This is the newest thing I can tell you of, except it be of the peace, which now (most people say) is drawing to such a conclusion, as all Europe is, or must be satisfied with; so poverty, you see, which makes peace in Westminster-hall, makes it likewise in the camp or field, throughout the world. Peace then be to you, and to me, who am now grown peaceful, and will have no contest with any man, but him who says he is more your friend or humble servant, than Your, etc. |