LETTERS to and from Dr SWIFT.

From the year 1713 to 1737.

SIR,

N

LETTER I.

Mr POPE to Dr SWIFT *.

Binfield, Dec. 8. 1713.

OT to trouble you at present with a recital of all my obligations to you, I fhall only mention two things, which I take particularly kind of you: your defire that I should write to you; and your propofal of giving me twenty guineas to change my religion; which laft you must give me leave to make the fubject of this letter.

Sure, no clergyman ever offered fo much out of his own purfe for the fake of any religion. 'Tis almost as many pieces of gold, as an apoftle could get of filver from the priests of old, on a much more valuable confideration. I believe it will be better worth my while to propofe a change of my faith by fubfcription, than a tranflation of Homer. And to convince you how well difpofed I am to the reformation, I fhall be content, if you can prevail with my Lord Treafurer and the miniftry to rife to the fame fum, each of them, on this pious account, as my Lord Halifax has done on the profane one. I am afraid there's no being at once a poet and a good Chriftian; and I am very much straitened between two, while the Whigs feem willing to contribute as much, to continue me the one, as you would,

This letter was wrote by Mr Pope in answer to one from Dr Swift, wherein he had jocofely made an offer to his friend of a fum of money, ex caufa religionis, or, in plain English, to induce Mr Pope to change his religion. Orrery. It was never inferted in any former edition of Swift's works,

to

to make me the other. But if you can move every man in the government, who has above ten thousand pounds a-year, to subscribe as much as yourself, I fhall become a convert, as moft men do, when the Lord turns it to my intereft. I know they have the truth of religion fo much at heart, that they'd certainly give more to have one good fubject tranflated from Popery to the church of England, than twenty Heathenish authors out of any unknown tongue into ours. I there. fore commiffion you, Mr DEAN, with full authority, to tranfact this affair in my name, and to propofe as fol lows. First, That as to the head of our church, the Pope, I may engage to renounce his power, whenfoever I fhall receive any particular indulgences from the head of your church, the Queen.

As to communion in one kind, I shall also promise to change it for communion in both, as foon as the miniftry will allow me.

For invocations to faints, mine fhall be turned to dedications to finners, when I fhall find the great ones of this world as willing to do me any good, as I believe thofe of the other are.

You fee I fhall not be obftinate in the main points. But there is one article I must referve, and which you feemed not unwilling to allow me, prayer for the dead. There are people to whofe fouls I wifh as well as to my own; and I muft crave leave humbly to lay before them, that though the fubfcriptions above mentioned will fuffice for myfelf, there are neceffary perquifites and additions, which I muft demand on the fcore of this charitable article. It is alfo to be confidered, that the greater part of thofe whofe fouls I am moft concerned for, were unfortunately hereties, fchifmatics, poets, painters, or perfons of fuch lives and manners, as few or no churches are willing to fave. The expence will therefore be the greater to make an effectual provifion for the faid fouls.

Old Dryden, though a Roman Catholic, was a poet; and it is revealed in the vifions of fome ancient faints, that no poet was ever faved under fome hundred of maffes. I cannot fet his delivery from purgatory at less than fifty pounds Sterling.

Walh

Walsh was not only a Socinian, but (what you'll own is harder to be faved) a Whig. He cannot mo deftly be rated at less than an hundred.

L'Eftrange being a Tory, we compute him but at twenty pounds; which I hope no friend of the party can deny to give, to keep him from damning in the next life, confidering they never gave him fixpence to keep him from starving in this.

All this together amounts to one hundred and seventy pounds.

In the next place, I must defire you to represent, that there are several of my friends yet living, whom I defign, God willing, to outlive, in confideration of legacies; out of which it is a doctrine in the reformed church, that not a farthing shall be allowed to fave their fouls who gave them.

There is one **** who will die within these few

months, with ****** one Mr Jervas, who hath grievously offended in making the likeness of almost all things in heaven above and earth below; and one Mr Gay, an unhappy youth, who writes paftorals during the time of divine fervice; whofe cafe is the more deplorable, as he hath miferably lavished away all that filver he fhould have referved for his foul's health, in buttons and loops for his coat.

I cannot pretend to have these people honestly saved under fome hundred pounds, whether you confider the difficulty of fuch a work, or the extreme love and tenderness I bear them, which will infallibly make me push this charity as far as I am able. There is but one more whofe falvation I infift upon, and then I have done : but indeed it may prove of fo much greater charge than all the reft, that I will only lay the cafe before you and the miniftry, and leave to their prudence and generofity, what fum they shall think fit to bestow upon it.

The perfon I mean, is Dr Swift, a dignified clergyman, but one, who, by his own confeffion, has compofed more libels than fermons. If it be true, what I have heard often affirmed by innocent people, That too much wit is dangerous to falvation, this unfortunate gentleman muft certainly be damned to all eternity. But I hope his log experience in the world, and fre

quent

quent converfation with great men, will caufe him (as it has fome others) to have lefs and lefs wit every day. Be it as it will, I should not think my own soul deserved to be faved, if I did not endeavour to fave his; for I have all the obligations in nature to him. He has brought me into better company than I cared for, made me merrier when I was fick than I had mind to be, and put me upon making poems, on purpose that he might alter them, &c.

me,

I once thought I could never have discharged my debt to his kindness; but have lately been informed, to my unfpeakable comfort, that I have more than paid it all. For Monf. de Montagne has affured "that the per"fon who receives a benefit, obliges the giver:" for fince the chief endeavour of one friend is to do good to the other, he who administers both the matter and occafion, is the man who is liberal. At this rate it is impoffible Dr Swift fhould be ever out of my debt, as matters ftand already: and for the future, he may expect daily more obligations from

His most faithful, affectionate,

bumble fervant,

A. POPE.

I have finished the Rape of the Lock; but I believe I may stay here till Christmas, without hindrance of bu finefs.

LETTER II.

Mr POPE to Dr SWIFT.

June 18. 1714

W

Hatever apologies it might become me to make at any other time for writing to you, I shall use none now, to a man who has owned himself as fplenetic as a cat in the country. In that circumftance, I know by experience, a letter is a very useful, as well as amufing thing. If you are too bufied in ftate-affairs to read it, yet you may find entertainment in folding it into di vers figures; either doubling it into a pyramidical, or

twifting

twifting it into a ferpentine form; or, if your difpofition fhould not be fo mathematical, in taking it with you to that place where men of ftudious minds are apt to fit longer than ordinary; where, after an abrupt divifion of the paper, it may not be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the broken lines together. All these amusements I am no ftranger to in the country; and doubt not but, by this time, you begin to relish them in your prefent contemplative fituation.

I remember a man who was thought to have fome knowledge in the world, ufed to affirm, that no people in town ever complained they were forgotten by their friends in the country. But my increafing experience convinces me he was mistaken; for I find a great many here grievously complaining of you upon this fcore. I am told further, that you treat the few you correspond with, in a very arrogant ftyle; and tell them, you admire at their infolence in difturbing your meditations, or even inquiring of your retreat *: but this I will not pofitively affert, because I never received any fuch infulting epistle from you. My Lord Oxford fays, you have not written to him once fince you went. But this perhaps may be only policy in him or you; and I, who am half a Whig, mut not entirely credit any thing he affirms. At Button's it is reported you are gone to Hanover, and that Gay goes only on an embaffy to you. Others apprehend fome dangerous ftate-treatise from your retire ment; and a wit who affects to imitate Balfac, fays, that the ministry now are like thofe Heathens of old who received their oracles from the woods. The gentlemen of the Roman-Catholic perfuafion are not unwilling to credit me, when I whisper, that you are gone to meet fome Jesuits commiffioned from the court of Rome, in order to fettle the most convenient methods to be taken for the coming of the pretender. Dr Arbuthnot is fingular in his opinion, and imagines your only defign is to attend at full leisure to the life and ad

Some time before the death of Q. Anne, when her minifters were quarrelling, and the Dean could not reconcile them, he retired to a friend's house in Berkshire, and never saw them after. Dub. edit.

VOL. VIII.

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ventures