my

letter

Adieu, my dear Lady I cannot conclude with a subject that affords more delightful scenes to [the] imagination. I leave you to figure to yourself the extreme court that will be made to me, at my return, if my travels should furnish me with such a useful piece of learning. I am, dear madam, &c.

To MR. P- 1

Sept. 1, 1717.

WHEN I wrote to you last, Belgrade was in the hands of the Turks; but at this present moment, it has changed masters, and is in the hands of the Imperialists. A janissary, who in nine days, and yet without any wings but what a panic terror seems to have furnished, arrived at Constantinople from the army of the Turks before Belgrade, brought Mr. W. the news of a complete victory obtained by the Imperialists, commanded by Prince Eugene, over the Ottoman troops. It is said, the prince has discovered great conduct and valour in this action, and I am particularly glad that the voice of glory and duty has called him from the- (Here several words of the manuscript are effaced.) Two days after the battle the town surrendered. The consternation which this defeat has occasioned here, is inexpressible; and the Sultan apprehending a revolution from the resentment and indignation of the people, fomented by certain leaders, has begun his precautions, after the goodly fashion of this blessed government, by ordering several persons to be strangled who were the objects of his royal suspicion. He has also ordered his treasurer to advance some months' pay to the janissaries, which seems the less necessary, as their conduct

This letter was first published in the "Additional Volume to the Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M-y W-y M—e,” 1767, said to have been edited by the notorious John Cleland. No manuscript authority has ever been produced, and the authenticity of the letter, as of all others first published in the volume referred to, is extremely doubtful. It is evidently intended to be read as a letter to Pope; but the compliments to him at the expense of Addison are such as Lady Mary was not likely to have written, and the allusion to Twickenham was impossible, as Pope did not remove to Twickenham till more than twelve months later.--T.

has been bad in this campaign, and their licentious ferocity seems pretty well tamed by the public contempt. Such of them as return in straggling and fugitive parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit enough to defend themselves from the insults of the mob; the very children taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they pass. They refused during the battle to lend their assistance to save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, were defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the janissaries and spahis were nobly employed in plundering their own camp.

You see here that I give you a very handsome return for your obliging letter. You entertain me with a most agreeable account of your amiable connections with men of letters and taste, and of the delicious moments you pass in their society under the rural shade; and I exhibit to you in return, the barbarous spectacle of Turks and Germans cutting one another's throats. But what can you expect from such a country as this, from which the Muses have fled, from which letters seem eternally banished, and in which you see, in private scenes, nothing pursued as happiness but the refinements of an indolent voluptuousness, and where those who act upon the public theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror! Here pleasure, to which I am no enemy, when it is properly seasoned and of a good composition, is surely of the cloying kind. Veins of wit, elegant conversation, easy commerce, are unknown among the Turks; and yet they seem capable of all these, if the vile spirit of their government did not stifle genius, damp curiosity, and suppress a hundred passions that embellish and render life agreeable. The luscious passion of the seraglio is the only one almost that is gratified here to the full, but it is blended so with the surly spirit of despotism in one of the parties, and with the dejection and anxiety which this spirit produces in the other, that to one of my way of thinking it cannot appear otherwise than as a very mixed kind of enjoyment. The women here are not, indeed, so closely confined as many have related; they enjoy a high degree of liberty, even in the bosom of servitude, and they have methods of evasion and disguise that are very favourable to gallantry; but, after all, they are still

under uneasy apprehensions of being discovered; and a discovery exposes them to the most merciless rage of jealousy, which is here a monster that cannot be satiated but with blood. The magnificence and riches that reign in the apartments of the ladies of fashion here, seem to be one of their chief pleasures, joined with their retinue of female slaves, whose music, dancing, and dress amuse them highly-but there is such an air of form and stiffness amidst this grandeur, as hinders it from pleasing me at long run, however I was dazzled with it at first sight. This stiffness and formality of manners are peculiar to the Turkish ladies; for the Grecian belles are of quite another character and complexion; with them pleasure appears in more engaging forms, and their persons, manners, conversation, and amusements, are very far from being destitute of elegance and ease.

I

I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared secretary of state with the less surprise, in that I know that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and [I] really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both. It is well that he laid aside the thoughts of the voluminous dictionary, of which I have heard you or somebody else frequently make mention. But no more on that subject; I wonld not have said so much, were I not assured that this letter will come safe and unopened to hand. long much to tread upon English ground, that I may see you and Mr. Congreve, who render that ground classic ground; nor will you refuse our present secretary a part of that merit, whatever reasons you may have to be dissatisfied with him in other respects. You are the three happiest poets I ever heard of; one a secretary of state, the other enjoying leisure with dignity in two lucrative employments; and you, though your religious profession is an obstacle to court promotion, and disqualifies you from filling civil employments, have found the philosopher's stone, since by making the Iliad pass through your poetical crucible into an English form, without losing aught of its

original beauty, you have drawn the golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this finding the philosopher's stone, since you alone found out the secret and nobody else has got into it. An [Addison] and T-1 [Tickell] tried it, but their experiments failed; and they lost, if not their money, at least a certain portion of their fame in the trial;—while you touched the mantle of the divine bard, and imbibed his spirit. I hope we shall have the Odyssey soon from your happy hand, and I think I shall follow with singular pleasure the traveller Ulysses, who was an observer of men and manners, when he travels in your harmonious numbers. I love him much better than the hot-headed son of Peleus, who bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is true, the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or dignity, but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastic: a perfect hero is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is also true that while the epic hero ought to be drawn with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be represented as extremely absurd. But it becomes me ill to play the critic; so I take my leave of you for this time, and desire you will believe me, with the highest esteem,

TO MRS. T. [THISTLETHWAYTE].

Yours, &c.

Pera of Constantinople, Jan. 4, O.S. [1718].

I AM infinitely obliged to you, dear Mrs. T. [Thistlethwayte], for your entertaining letter. You are the only one of my correspondents that have judged right enough, to think I would gladly be informed of the news among you. All the rest of them tell me (almost in the same words) that they suppose I know every thing. Why they are pleased to suppose in this manner, I can guess no reason, except that they are persuaded that the breed of Mahomet's pigeon still subsists in this country, and that I receive supernatural intelligence.

1

Originally "Thistlethwayte," but struck out except initial.—T.

I wish I could return your goodness with some diverting accounts from hence. But I know not what part of the scenes here would gratify your curiosity, or whether you have any curiosity at all for things so far distant. To say the truth, I am, at this present writing, not very much turned for the recollection of what is diverting, my head being wholly filled with the preparations necessary for the increase of my family, which I expect every day. You may easily guess at my uneasy situation. But I am, however, in some degree comforted, by the glory that accrues to me from it, and a reflection on the contempt I should otherwise fall under. You won't know what to make of this speech; but, in this country, it is more despicable to be married and not fruitful, than it is with us to be fruitful before marriage. They have a notion, that, whenever a woman leaves off bringing children, it is because she is too old for that business, whatever her face says to the contrary; and this opinion makes the ladies here so ready to make proofs of their youth, (which is as necessary, in order to be a received beauty, as it is to shew the proofs of nobility, to be admitted knight of Malta,) that they do not content themselves with using the natural means, but fly to all sorts of quackeries, to avoid the scandal of being past child-bearing, and often kill themselves by them. Without any exaggeration, all the women of my acquaintance that have been married ten years, have twelve or thirteen children; and the old ones boast of having had five-and-twenty or thirty a-piece, and are respected according to the number they have produced. When they are with child, it is their common expression to say, They hope God will be so merciful to them to send two this time; and when I have asked them sometimes, How they expected to provide for such a flock as they desire? they answered, That the plague will certainly kill half of them; which, indeed, generally happens, without much concern to the parents, who are satisfied with the vanity of having brought forth so plentifully.

The French embassadress is forced to comply with this fashion as well as myself. She has not been here much above a year, and has lain in once, and is big again. What is most wonderful is, the exemption they seem to enjoy from