I am already alarmed with your excuse of deafness and dizziness. Yielding to such a complaint, always strengthens it; exerting against it, generally lessens it. Do not immerge in the sole enjoyment of yourself. Is not a friend the medicine of life? I am sure it is the comfort of it. And I hope you still admit such companions as are capable of administering it. In that number I know I am unworthy of rank however, my best wishes shall attend you. The Latin I be I have enclosed some verses. lieve will please you; one of the translations may have the same fortune, the other cannot. The verses written in the lady's book is, A Lamentable Hymn to Death, from a lover, inscribed to his mistress. I have made the author of it vain (who I am sure had never read Pope's Heloise to Abelard) in telling him his six last lines seem a parody on six of Pope's. They are on the other side, that you may not be at a loss. Then too, when fate shall thy fair frame destroy, 1 5. I I think the whole letter the most passionate I ever read, except Heloise's own, on the subject of love. I am equally struck with Cadenus to Vanessa... I have often soothed my love with both, when I have been in a fit. I will conclude with the above wish, and thie assuring EE 3 My boy sends you his respects, and would fain pay them in person to you. DR. KING TO MRS. WHITEWAY. f MADAM, LONDON, MARCH 6, 1738-9. I DO not remember any thing published in my time, that hath been so universally well received as the dean's last poem. Two editions have been already sold off, though two thousand were printed at first. In short, all people read it, all agree to commend it; and I have been well assured, the greatest enemies the dean has in this country, allow it to be a just and beautiful satire. As I am very sincerely and sensibly affected by every thing that may raise the dean's character as a writer (if any thing can raise it higher) so you may believe I have had the greatest pleasure in observing the success and general approbation which this poem has met with; wherefore I was not a little mortified yesterday, when the bookseller brought me the Dublin edition, and at the same time. put into my my hands a letter he had received from Faulkner, by which I perceive the dean is much dissatisfied with our manner of publication, and that so many lines have been omitted, if Faulkner speaks truth, and knows as much of the dean's mind as he pretends to know. Faulkner has sent over several other copies to other booksellers; so that I take it for granted this poem will soon be reprinted here from the Dublin edition; and then it may be perceived how much the dean's friends have been mistaken in their judgment, however good their intentions have been. In the mean time I will write to you on this occasion without any reserve; for I know you love the dean, and kindly and zealously interest yourself in every thing that concerns his character; and if you will believe the same of me, you will do me great justice. The doctor's friends, whom I consulted on this occasion, were of opinion, that the latter part of the poem might be thought by the publick a little vain, if so much were said by himself of himself. They were unwilling that any imputation of this kind should lie against this poem, considering there is not the least tincture of vanity appearing in any of his former writings, and that it is well known, there is no man living more free from that fault than he is. They were of opinion that these lines, He lash'd the vice, but spared the name. Where thousands equally were meant might be liable to some objection, and were not, strictly speaking, a just part of his character; be cause several persons have been lashed by name, a Bettesworth, and in this poem, Chartres and Whitshed; and for my part, I do not think, or ever shall think, that it is an imputation on a satirist to lash an infamous fellow by name. The lines which begin, Here's Wolston's Tracts, the twelfth edition, &c. are plainly a mistake, and were omitted for that reason only for Wolston never had a pension; on the contrary he was prosecuted for his blasphemous writings; his book was burnt by the hands of the common hangman; he himself was imprisoned, and died in prison. Woolaston, the author of a book called, "The Religion of Nature "delineated," was indeed much admired at court, his book universally read, his busto set up by the late queen in her grotto at Richmond with Clarke's and Locke's; but this Woolaston was not a clergy man. The two last lines, That kingdom he hath left his debtor, I omitted, because I did not well understand them 5 knew ; knew; which perhaps is not the least sign of a great genius I have therefore ventured to make these objections to you; in which, however, for the most part, I submitted my own opinion to the judgment of others. I had something to add concerning the notes, but I have not room in this paper-but I will give you the trouble of reading another letter. Believe me, madam, your most obedient and most humble servant, IT DEAR SIR, APRIL THE 10TH, 1739. T is an age since I had the honour of a line from you. Your friend Mr. Alderman Barber, whose veneration for you prompts him to do any thing he can think of that can show his respect and affection, made a present to the university of Oxford of the original picture done for you by Jervas, to do honour to the university by your being placed in the gallery among the most renowned and distinguished personages this island has produced; but first had a copy taken, and then had the original set in a fine rich frame, and sent it to Oxford, after concerting with lord Bolingbroke, the vicechancellor, and Mr. Pope, as I remember, the inscription to be under the picture, a copy whereof is enclosed. The alder man |