Do not be so unjust, as to imagine from hence that I would decline any part of this task; on the contrary you know, I have been at the pains of transcribing some pieces, at once to comply with your desire of not defacing the copy, and yet to lose no time in proceeding upon the correction. I will go on the same way, if you please; though truly it is (as I have often told you) my sincere opinion, that the greater part would make a much better figure as single maxims and reflections in prose, after the manner of your favourite Rochefoucault, than in verse. And this, when nothing more is done but marking the repetitions in the margin, will be an easy task to proceed upon, notwithstanding the bad memory you complain of. I am unfeignedly, dear Sir, your, etc.

A. POPE.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

W. WALSH', ESQ.

From the Year 1705 to 1707.

LETTER I.

MR. WALSH TO MR. WYCHERLEY.

b

April 20, 1705. I RETURN you the papers you favoured me with, and had sent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you last night myself. I have read them over several times with great satisfaction. The preface is very judicious and very learned; and the verses very tender and easy. The author seems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken very freely from the Ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to say, that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age. I shall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him : and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my house, I shall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this letter. I am, Sir, etc.

a Of Abberley in Worcestershire, Gentleman of the Horse in Queen Anne's reign, author of several beautiful pieces in prose and verse, and in the opinion of Mr. Dryden (in his postscript to Virgil) the best critic of our nation in his time. © Sixteen..

Mr. Pope's Pastorals.

LETTER II.

MR. WALSH TO MR. POPE.

June 24, 1700.

I RECEIVED the favour of your letter, and shall be very glad of the continuance of a correspondence, by which I am like to be so great a gainer. I hope when I have the happiness of seeing you again in London, not only to read over the verses I have now of yours, but more that you have written since; for I make no doubt but any one who writes so well, must write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the best; I believe the contrary is rather true. I mentioned somewhat to you in London of a pastoral comedy, which I should be glad to hear you had thought upon since. I find Menage, in his observations upon Tasso's Aminta, reckons up fourscore pastoral plays in Italian: and in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many pastoral and piscatory plays, which, I suppose, Menage reckons together. I find also by Menage, that Tasso is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before him which he himself had never seen, nor indeed have I. But as the Aminta, Pastor Fido, and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli are the three best, so, I think, there is no dispute but Aminta is the best of the three: not but that the discourses in Pastor Fido are more entertaining and copious in several people's opinion, though not so proper for pastoral; and the fable of Bonarelli more surprising. I do not remember many in other languages, that have written in this kind with success. Racan's Bergeries are much inferior to his lyric poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the design of pastoral plays to be taken from the Cyclops of Euripidesa I am sure there is nothing of this kind in English

worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourself. You see I write to you without any sort of constraint or method, as things come into my head, and therefore use the same freedom with me, who am, etc.

LETTER III.

TO MR. WALSH.

Windsor Forest, July 2, 1706.

I CANNOT omit the first opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing those papers of mine. You have no less right to correct me, than the same hand that raised a tree has to prune it. I am convinced as well as you, that one may correct too much; for in poetry as in painting, a man may lay colours one upon another till they stiffen and deaden the piece. Besides, to bestow heightening on every part is monstrous: Some parts ought to be lower than the rest; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, seem all on a level: 'Tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grass, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undistinguished. I believe too that sometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first squeezing of the grapes makes the finest and richest wine.

I have not attempted any thing of a pastoral comedy, because I think the taste of our age will not relish a poem of that sort. People seek for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing: Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majesty in simplicity, which is far above all the quaintness of wit; insomuch that the critics have excluded

wit from the loftiest poetry, as well as the lowest, and forbid it to the epic no less than the pastoral. I should certainly displease all those who are charmed with Guarini and Bonarelli, and imitate Tasso not only in the simplicity of his thoughts, but in that of the Fable too. If surprizing discoveries should have place in the story of a Pastoral comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make them the effects of chance than of design; intrigue not being very consistent with that innocence, which ought to constitute a shepherd's character. There is nothing in all the Aminta (as I remember) but happens by mere accident; unless it be the meeting of Aminta with Sylvia at the fountain, which is the contrivance of Daphne; and even that is the most simple in the world: The contrary is observable in Pastor Fido, where Corisca is so perfect a mistress of intrigue, that the plot could not have been brought to pass without her. I am inclined to think the pastoral comedy has another disadvantage as to the manners: Its general design is to make us in love with the innocence of rural life, so that to introduce shepherds of a vicious character must in some measure debase it: And hence it may come to pass, that even the virtuous characters will not shine so much, for want of being opposed to their contraries. These thoughts are purely my own, and therefore I have reason to doubt them: but I hope your judgment will set me right.

I would beg your opinion too as to another point: it is, how far the liberty of borrowing may extend? I have defended it sometimes by saying, that it seems not so much the perfection of sense, to say things that had never been said before, as to express those best that have been said oftenest; and that writers, in the case of borrowing from others, are like trees, which of themselves would produce only one sort of fruit, but by being grafted upon others may yield variety. A mutual commerce makes poetry flourish;

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