never fuffered this criticism, but on the fcore of your head, and the two eyes that are in it.

Pray, when you write to me, talk of yourfelf; there is nothing I fo much defire, to hear of: talk a great deal of yourfelf; that he who I always thought talked the beft, may speak upon the best fubject. The fhrines and reliques you tell me of, no way engage my curiofity; I had ten times rather go on a pilgrimage to fee one fuch face as yours, than both St. John Baptift's heads. I wish (fince you are grown fo covetous of golden things) you had not only all the fine tatues you talk of, but even the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar fet up, provided you were to travel no farther than you could carry it.

The court of Vienna is very edifying. The ladies, with respect to their hulbands, feem to understand that text literally, that commands to bear one another's burdens: but, I fancy, many a man there is like Iffachar, an afs between two burdens. I fhall look upon you no more as a Chriftian, when you pass from that charitable court to the land of jealoufy. I expect to hear an exact account how, and at what places, you leave one of the thirty-nine articles after another, as you approach to the land of infidelity. Pray how far are you got already? Amidit the pomp of high mafs, and the ravishing thrills of a Sunday opera, what did you think of the doctrine and difcipline of the church of England? Had you from your heart a reverence for Sternhold and Hopkins? How did your Christian virtues hold out in fo long a voyage? You have, it feems (without paffing the bounds of Christendom) out-travelled the fin of fornication; in a little time you'll look upon fome others with more patience than the ladies here are capable of. I reckon, you'll time it fo well as to make your religion laft to the verge of Christendom, that you may difcharge your chaplain (as humanity requires) in a place where he may find fome bufinefs.

I doubt not but I fhall be told (when I come to follow you through these countries) in how pretty a manner you accommodated yourself to the cuftoms of the true Muffulmen. They will tell me at what town you practifed to fit on the fopha, at what village you learned to fold a turban, where you was bathed and anointed, and where you parted with your black fullbottom. How happy muft it be for a gay young woman, to live in a country where

it is a part of religious worship to be giddy-headed! I thall hear at Belgrade how the good Bafhaw received you with tears of joy, how he was charmed with your agreeable manner of pronouncing the words Allah and Muhamed; and how earneftly you joined with him in exhorting your friend to embrace that religion. But I think his objection was a juft one; that it was attended with fome circumftances under which he could not properly represent his Britannic majefty.

Laftly, I fhall hear how, the first night you lay at Pera, you had a vifion of Mahomet's paradife, and happily awaked without a foul; from which bleffed moment the beautiful body was left at full liberty to perform all the agreeable functions it was made for.

I fee I have done in this letter, as I often have done in your company; talked myfelf into a good humour, when I begun in an ill one: the pleasure of addreffing you makes me run on; and 'tis in your power to shorten this letter as much as you pleafe, by giving over when you please: fo I'll make it no longer by apologies.

Pope.

$40. The Manners of a Bookfeller.

To the Earl of Burlington.
My Lord,

If your mare could fpeak, fhe would give an account of what extraordinary company fhe had on the road; which fince fhe cannot do, I will.

It was the enterprizing Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr. Tonfon, who, mounted on a flone-horfe (no difagreeable companion to your lordship's mare) overtook me in Windfor-forest. He faid, he heard I defigned for Oxford, the feat of the Mufes; and would, as my bookfeller, by all means accompany me thither.

I asked him where he got his horfe? He answered, he got it of his publisher; "For that rogue, my printer (faid he)

difappointed me: I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern, "of a brown fricaffee of rabbits, which "coft two fhillings, with two quarts of "wine, befides my converfation. I thought

myfelf cock-fure of his horfe, which he "readily promifed me, but faid that Mr. "Tonfon had juft fuch another design of

going to Cambridge, expecting there "the copy of a new kind of Horace from “Dr. -; and if Mr. Tonfon went, he

« was

ped the corrector's pay too, upon this proof, that he had made ufe of Creech "initead of the original."

Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics? Sir (faid he) nothing more eafy. I can filence the moft formidable of them: the rich ones with a fheet apiece of the blotted manufcript, which "colts me nothing; they'll go about with "it to their acquaintance, and fay they "had it from the author, who fubmitted "to their correction: this has given fome "of them fuch an air, that in time they 66 come to be confulted with, and dedi"cated to, as the top critics of the town. "As for the poor critics, I'll give you "one inftance of my management, by "which you may guefs at the rett. A lean 66 man, that looked like a very good fcho"lar, came to me t'other day; he turned "over your Homer, fhook his head, fhrugged up his fhoulders, and pifhed at every "line of it. One would wonder (fays he) at the ftrange prefumption of fome men; "Homer is no fuch eafy tafk, that every ftripling, every verfifier. He was going "on, when my wife called to dinner-Sir, "faid I, will you pleafe to eat a piece of "beef with me? Mr. Lintot (faid he) "I am forry you should be at the expence "of this great book; I am really con"cerned on your account-Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a flice of pudding-Mr. Lintot, I do not fay but "Mr. Pope, if he would but condefcend "to advife with men of learning-Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you pleafe to go in My critic complies, he comes "to a taste of your poetry; and tells me "in the fame breath, that your book is "commendable and the pudding excel❝lent.

66

got to Oxford, and paid a vifit to my lord Carlton at Middleton.

The converfations I enjoy here are not to be prejudiced by my pen, and the pleafures from them only to be equalled when I meet your lordship. I hope in a few days to caft myself from your horfe at your feet. Pope.

§ 41. Defcription of a Country Seat. To the Duke of Buckingham. In anfwer to a letter in which he inclofed the defcription of Buckingham-house, written by him to the D. of Sh.

Pliny was one of thofe few authors who had a warm houfe over his head, nay, two houfes; as appears by two of his epiftles. I believe, if any of his contemporary authors durft have informed the public where they lodged, we fhould have found the garrets of Rome as well inhabited as thofe of Fleet-ftreet; but 'tis dangerous to let creditors into fuch a fecret; therefore we may prefume that then, as well as nowa-days, nobody knew where they lived but their book fellers.

It feems, that when Virgil came to Rome, he had no lodging at all; he first introduced himself to Auguftus by an epigram, beginning Nocte pluit tota-an obfervation which probably he had not made, unless he had lain all night in the treet.

Where Juvenal lived, we cannot affirm; but in one of his fatires he complains of the exceffive price of lodging; neither do I believe he would have talked fo feelingly of Codrus's bed, if there had been room for a bed-fellow in it.

Thefe, my lord, are a few traits by which you may difcern the genius of Mr. Lintot; which I have chofen for the fubject of a letter. I dropt him as soon as I

I have been reading the defeription of Pliny's houfe with an eye to yours; but finding they will bear no comparifon, will try if it can be matched by the large country-feat I inhabit at prefent, and fee what figure it may make by the help of a florid defcription.

You must expect nothing regular in my defcription, any more than in the house; the whole vaft edifice is fo disjointed, and

the

the feveral parts of it fo detached one from the other, and yet so joining again, one cannot tell how, that, in one of my poetical fits, I imagined it had been a village in Amphion's time; where the cottages, having taken a country-dance together, had been all out, and ftood ftone-ftill with amazement ever fince.

You must excufe me, if I fay nothing of the front; indeed I don't know which it is. A ftranger would be grievously dif. appointed, who endeavoured to get into the house the right way. One would reafonably expect, after the entry through the porch, to be let into the hall: alas, nothing lefs! you find yourself in the house of office. From the parlour you think to ftep into the drawing-room; but, upon opening the iron nailed door, you are convinced, by a flight of birds about your cars, and a cloud of duft in your eyes, that it is the pigeon-houfe. If you come into the chapel, you find its altars, like thofe of the ancients, continually fmcaking; but it is with the fteams of the adjoining kitchen.

The great hall within is high and fpacious, flanked on one fide with a very long table, a true image of ancient hofpitality: the walls are all over ornamented with monftrous horns of animals, about twenty broken pikes, ten or a dozen blunderbuffes, and a rufty match-lock mufquet or two, which we were informed had ferved in the civil wars. Here is one vaft arched window, beautifully darkened with divers 'fcutcheons of painted glass; one fhining pane in particular bears date 1286, which alone preferves the memory of a knight, whofe iron armour is long fince perifhed with ruft, and whofe alabaster nofe is mouldered from his monument. The face of dame Eleanor, in another piece, owes more to that fingle pane than to all the glaffes the ever confulted in her life. After this, who can say that glafs is frail, when it is not half fo frail as human beauty, or glory! and yet I can't but figh to think that the moft authentic record of fo ancient a family fhould lie at the mercy of every infant who flings a stone. In former days there have dined in this hall gartered knights, and courtly dames, attended by ufhers, fewers, and fenefchals; and yet it was but last night that an owl flew hither, and mistook it for a barn.

This hall lets you (up and down) over a very high threshold into the great parlour. Its contents are a broken-belly'd virginal, a couple of crippled velvet chairs,

with two or three mildewed pictures of mouldy ancestors, who look as difmally as if they came fresh from hell, with all their brimftone about them: thefe are carefully fet at the further corner; for the windows being every were broken, make it so convenient a place to dry poppies and muftard feed, that the room is appropriated to that ufe.

Next this parlour, as I faid before, lies the pigeon-houte; by the fide of which runs an entry, which lets you on one hand and t'other into a bed-chamber, a buttery and a fmall hole called the chaplain's ftudy: then follow a brewhoufe, a little green and gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under which is the dairy: a little further, on the right, the fervants hall; and by the fide of it, up fix fteps, the old lady's closet for her private devotions; which has a lattice into the hall, intended (as we imagine) that at the fame time as fhe pray'd the might have an eye on the men and maids. There are upon the ground-floor, in all, twenty-fix apartments; among which I must not forget a chamber which has in it a large antiquity of timber, that feems to have been either a bedstead, or a cyder-prefs.

The kitchen is built in form of a rotunda, being one vaft vault to the top of the houfe; where one aperture ferves to let out the fmoke, and let in the light. By the blackness of the walls, the circular fires, vaft cauldrons, yawning mouths of ovens and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polypheme, or the temple of Moloch. The horror of this place has made fuch an impression on the country-people, that they believe the witches keep their Sabbath here, and that once a year the devil treats them with infernal venison, a roafted tiger stuffed with ten-penny nails.

Above ftairs we have a number of rooms; you never pafs out of one into another, but by the afcent or defcent of two or three flairs. Our best room is very long and low, of the exact proportion of a banbox. In most of these rooms there are hangings of the finest work in the world, that is to fay, those which Arachne fpins from her own bowels. Were it not for this only furniture, the whole would be a miferable scene of naked walls, flaw'd ceilings, broken windows, and rufty locks. The roof is fo decayed, that after a favourable shower we may expect a crop of mushrooms, between the chinks of our floors. All the doors are as little and low

as thofe to the cabins of packet-boats. These rooms have, for many years, had no other inhabitants than certain rats, whofe very age renders them worthy of this feat, for the very rats of this venerable houfe are grey; fince thefe have not yet quitted it, we hope at least that this ancient manfion may not fall during the fmall remnant thefe poor animals have to live, who are now too infirm to remove to another. There is yet a finall fubfiftence left them in the few remaining books of the library.

memory of that, which itself muft foon fall into duft, nay, perhaps part of it, before this letter reaches your hands.

Indeed we owe this old house the fame kind of gratitude that we do to an old friend, who harbours us in his declining condition, nay even in his laft extremities. How fit is this retreat for uninterrupted fudy, where no one that paffes by can dream there is an inhabitant, and even thofe who would dine with us dare not stay under our roof! Any one that fees it, will own I could not have chofen a more likely place to converfe with the dead in. I had been mad indeed if I had left your grace for any one but Homer. But when I return to the living, I fhall have the fenfe to endeavour to converfe with the best of them, and fhall therefore, as foon as poffible, tell you in perfon how much I am, &c. Pope.

"this drink. He had two fons, poor young "mafters who never arrived to the age of "his beer; they both fell ill in this very "room, and never went out on their own

legs." He could not país by a heap of broken bottles without taking up a piece, to fhew us the arms of the family upon it. He then led us up the tower by dark winding ftone fteps, which landed us into feveral little rooms one above another. One of thefe was nailed up, and our guide whispered to us as a fecret the occafion of it: it feems the courfe of this noble blood was a little interrupted, about two centuries ago, by a freak of the lady Frances, who was here taken in the fact with a neighbouring prior; ever fince which the room has been nailed up, and branded with the name of the Adultery-Chamber. The ghoft of lady Frances is fuppofed to walk there, and fome prying maids of the family report that they have feen a lady in a fardingale through the key-hole: but this matter is hufht up, and the fervants are forbid to talk of it.

1 muft needs have tired you with this long defcription: but what engaged me in it, was a generous principle to preferve the

§ 42. Apology for his religious Tenets.
My Lord,

lence on my father's death, and the defire I am truly obliged by your kind condoyou exprefs that I fhould improve this incident to my advantage. I know your lordship's friendship to me is fo extenfive, that include in that with both my fpiritual and my temporal advantage; and it is what I owe to that friendship, to open It is true I have loft a parent, for whom my mind unreservedly to you on this head. valent. But that was not my only tie; I no gains I could make would be any equithank God another ftill remains (and long may it remain) of the fame tender nature; Genitrix eft mihi-and excufe me if I fay with Euryalus,

Nequeam lachrymas perferre parentis.

A rigid divine may call it a carnal tie, but fure it is a virtuous one: at least I am more certain that it is a duty of nature to preferve a good parent's life and happinefs, than I am of any speculative point

whatever.