things; therefore I hope you believed the intention I expressed of waiting on you at Wimpole, which unfeignedly would be a great pleasure to me, and one I have long, and much desired, in my heart. The Duchess of Buckingham has challenged a prior promise of attending her to Leighs,' from whence I design to travel on to your lordship by the way of Ware. What I apprehend is, that she will not go out of London till the middle of next week, and I fear that may be so late as to come full upon your journey to Bath. I therefore beg the favor of a line to know precisely what will be the latest time that you shall be to be found at Wimpole, that I may manage accordingly, or, if possible, hasten my way to you. Next Saturday I shall be in London (which I have never once seen since your lordship's removal) and a letter directed to Lord Bathurst's' will reach me.

I would fain some way or other express what I really am in regard to your lordship, and the sense I shall ever have of so many instances of obliging favour to me. I can only say, I from my soul esteem those uncommon qualities of true honour, true greatness, and true virtue.

Aug. 14, "made advances of civility to the whigs which they have returned with the utmost contempt." They impeached him a year later, and he was sent to the Tower. His entire career had been that of a creeping intriguer, who practised ignoble arts. and stooped to mean compliances, for the sake of place, and it is one of the anomalies of human nature that having hitherto appeared destitute of manly virtues, he exhibited a masculine intrepidity the moment his life was at stake. No treason was proved against him, and after being shut up for two years, he was discharged from custody July 3, 1717. He emerged from his confinement without a follower. "All he can say," wrote Arbuthnot, Oct. 19, 1714, "will not give him one single friend amongst the whole party," and the remark continued true from the hour it was uttered to the close of Lord Oxford's

This made me your great

days. He relinquished the struggle, seldom appeared in parliament, sank deeper into the sloth which had been the reproach a jest of his friends, and having been always intemperate, resigned himself to a sottishness that hastened his end.

1 Leighs in Essex, where the Duke of Buckingham had an estate, is six or seven miles from Chelmsford.

2 In St. James's Square.

3 Prior said of Lord Harley that he was amabilis, and of Lady Harriet that she was adoranda. Edward, Lord Oxford, was kind-hearted, friendly, and munificent. In understanding he was below mediocrity. His love for books and manuscripts did not extend to their contents, he was a cipher in public life, and unequal to the management of his private affairs. Lady Oxford was dull and worthy. Lady Mary W. Montagu's daughter, afterwards Lady Bute, would some

father's admirer: I could not help it, and have no merit therefore in it; and yet I think that was all that recommended me to yourself. I wish my future life may be such as to manifest something that might be a more peculiar claim to the distinction you show me, in proving with what truth, and to what degree, I am your whole family's, and particularly your own, most faithful, most obliged and most sincere servant.

11.

EDWARD, EARL OF OXFORD, TO POPE. WIMPOLE, Sept. 25, 1724. SIR, I am very much obliged to you for the favour of yours I received last post. I do not know any letter has given me so much pleasure and satisfaction, because you tell me you are resolved to see this place this year. I shall not move from hence above these three weeks. I do not pretend to alter your resolution of waiting upon the Duchess of Buckingham at her house in Essex, but I would only suggest this, as this place is much the farthest from London, why should you not come here first and go from hence to her grace's? My fear is lest the rains should come, and the ways from Leighs to London are much better than from me to Ware. I shall be glad to know what you resolve to do, and when you design to move. Pray let me know when you will be at Ware, because I will send a servant to meet you that you might not be misled.' The bearer of this will call on Monday morning to know if you *have any commands.

times exclaim, "Dear mamma, how can you be so fond of that stupid woman?" and Lady Mary would reply, "Lady Oxford is not shining, but she has much more in her than such giddy things as you, and your companions, can discern." "She heartily detested," says Lady Louisa Stuart, "most of the wits who surrounded her husband," and "she hated Pope," said the Duchess of Portland.

1 Those who did not go by coach

frequently performed long journeys with the same horses that they set out with, content to advance by moderate stages, and take their ease at inns or the houses of friends. Travellers, ignorant of their road, engaged a local guide, and though he did sometimes "mislead" them, it is likely that Lord Oxford's intention of sending a servant was to save Pope the expense of an extra man and horse from Ware to Wimpole.

You make me ashamed when you set so high a value upon my poor endeavours to serve you. I will allow nobody to esteem, to value, or love you more than I do, and I do so from the conviction that you are the best poet, the truest friend, and the best natured man. These are characters that are extremely amiable, but very seldom fall to the share of one man to possess in such a degree as you do. I shall wait with great impatience to know when I shall be so happy as to see you under this roof. I am, sir, your most affectionate, humble servant.

12.

POPE TO LORD OXFORD.

TWITENHAM, Sept. 29, 1724.

MY LORD, I had no sooner manifested my intentions to your lordship, but that ill fortune, which generally has made me unable to put into act, or render any of my intentions toward my friends effectual, has stopped me here, much against my will. For my mother was taken ill the day I writ to you, and yet continues so. The duchess, I hear, does not go to Leighs as yet, and if she recovers,' I will not stay for her, but fly directly to Wimpole, by the way of Ware, or call and lie one night at Mr. Cæsar's; and so return by way of Leighs. Of this your lordship shall be certified, since I see you are so good as really to desire to be troubled with me; for I shall always do you the compliment, and, as the world goes, a great one it is, to believe everything you say, literally. I would not defer writing this very first post, though in the utmost hurry, occasioned by her illness, and the discharge of two servants, which are a great revolution and change of ministry in a small family. But I must take more time to assure you with what true sense of your favour, and with what solid satisfaction in it, I am ever, my lord, your most obliged, most faithful servant.

1 The Duchess of Buckingham was not ill, and Pope's meaning must be that "if his mother recovers he will not stay for the duchess."

2 Charles Cæsar, the member for the town of Hertford, lived at Bennington Place in the county of Hertfordshire.

13.

POPE TO LORD OXFORD.

Oct. 8, 1724.

MY LORD,-I should be unworthy of that which I above all things desire to deserve-your lordship's good opinion—if I was not thoroughly vexed, and thoroughly disappointed, at this accident which has hindered my absolute resolutions of waiting upon you, notwithstanding the accident itself be one which, to a man of your humanity, will seem rather melancholy than piquing or vexatious. My poor mother's illness, and that dispiritedness which attends illness in old people, makes me afraid, as well as troubled, to leave her. Besides, having watched every day for a fortnight past, till she might be enough on the mending hand, I find the time of your lordship's departure for Bath drawn too nigh to satisfy me in so short a stay with you. As to the duchess, I had put it off till my return from Wimpole, but now, too, I find she is not gone yet; so that I had my full liberty to have travelled directly first to you. The other objections are too strong, and you had heard of them sooner, but that I daily was in some hopes of getting to you. I am heartily disappointed, and so is another man, of the virtuoso class, as well as I; and in my notions, of the higher kind of class, since gardening is more antique, and nearer God's own work, than poetry,-I mean Bridgman,' whom I had tempted to accompany me to you. My lord, pray think well of me, that is, think me your true honourer, and your faithful, obliged, and obedient servant.

I had the satisfaction to hear from Dr. Arbuthnot that my Lady Oxford was pretty well.

He was a landscape gardener by profession. He has two claims to distinction in the history of his art,— he was the first who began to break in upon "the rigid symmetry" of the old rectangular designs, and he was the inventor of sunk fences, which Horace Walpole says were "then deemed so astonishing that the

common people called them Ha Ha's, to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk." The innovation was greatly admired, and brought new changes in its train. The contiguous ground outside the fence had "to be harmonised," says Walpole, "with the lawn within, and the gar

14.

LORD OXFORD TO POPE.

WIMPOLE, Oct. 26, 1724.

SIR,-It is not possible for me to be more pleased than I was with the hopes you gave me of seeing you here this year, except the real enjoyment of your company, and, consequently, when I found I was not to expect you, the disappointment made the greater impression, and the reason of your not being able to come, the illness of your mother, which I know, from your own tenderness and good-nature, gives you great trouble, so it is an addition to my grief. I could almost talk like a fond woman upon this occasion, but I will not give myself to despair, but hope that next year will be more fortunate to me.

I remember you are a lover of brawn. I shall next week send you a collar. I am, with true respect, sir, your most humble servant.

I hope Mrs. Pope is well. Pray present my humble service to her. You have forgot to send me the copy of verses upon Durfey.' Pray how goes Homer on under Lintot?

15.

POPE TO LORD OXFORD.

TWITENHAM, Nov. 6, 1724.

MY LORD,-I faithfully assure you I never was so unwilling to fear what has since happened, and never so sorry to give way to any obstacle to my desires, as when the apprehension of my poor mother's illness put a stop to my resolution of waiting on your lordship. And nothing in nature could have hindered my repenting that I did not see you, but what has unfortunately authorised my stay, namely, my poor mother's ensuing fever, in which she now lies in the last danger of life.

den was set free from its prim regularity that it might assort with the wilder country without."

1 Verses occasioned by Mr. Durfey's adding an etc. at the end of his

name. In imitation of Voiture's Neuf-Germain. They were printed by Curll in 1726, and by Pope in 1728.