1. POPE TO LORD ORRERY. July 12, 1735. MY LORD,-The pleasure you gave me in acquainting me of the dean's better health' is one so truly great as might content. even your own humanity, and whatever my sincere opinion and respect of your lordship prompts me to wish from your hands for myself, your love for him makes me as happy. Would to God my weight added to yours—a small to a great-could turn his inclinations to this side, that I might live to enjoy him here through your means, and flatter myself it was partly through my own. But this I fear will never be the case, and I think it more probable his attraction will draw me on the other side, which I protest nothing less than a probability of dying at sea, considering the weak frame of my breast, would have hindered from two years past. In short, whenever I think of him it is with the vexation of all impotent passions, that carry us out of ourselves only to spoil our quiet, and make us return to a resignation, which is the most melancholy of all virtues. At this time I have need of it, for I am just losing, perhaps have this moment lost, my Lord Peterborough. And Lord Bolingbroke whom I have loved longer than any man now living is gone away. And another whom I had just begun "We have just got my Lord Orrery among us," Swift wrote to Pope at the beginning of 1733. "He is a most worthy gentleman, whom I hope you will be acquainted with." Pope replied on Feb. 16, "My Lord Orrery is a most virtuous, and goodnatured nobleman whom I should be happy to know." In October, 1733, Lord Orrery went over to England, and, through the medium of Swift, he and Pope entered into friendly relations. 2 Lord Peterborough had gone to Bristol in what appeared to be a dying state, and his friends expected hourly to hear that he was dead. The same day on which Pope wrote to Lord Orrery, Mr. Poyntz, writing to Dr. Alured Clarke, from whom he received constant accounts of Lord Peterborough's state, says, "If my lord be still living be pleased to make my most affectionate compliments." 3 He left England in 1735, and once more settled in France. His private circumstances and public conduct concurred to expatriate him. His pecuniary embarrassments would not permit him to live longer at Dawley, and the political party he espoused did not disguise from him that they were injured by his alliance. "Pulteney," he said to Wyndham, "thought my very name, and pre to love, whose character I had some years esteemed, and whom I find I must love if he and I live, for there is no helping it, though I am weary of loving and taking leases when the life is almost run out,-another lord, I say, whose name I dare not tell you, is to stay a year in Ireland.' Well, the dead and the absent have my memory, if not my prayers, or wishes strong enough to be called so, that they may be happier than I can be till I join them. I am greatly obliged to your lordship's generosity in promising to contradict malicious reports in my regard. I embrace them all with transport while they procure me such defenders as show I cannot be what envy reports, for they are such as never could befriend an ill man. I am not quite at the bottom of that business but very near it, and find a person, whom I cannot think quite dishonest, has contributed to that suspicion by exceeding a commission which was given him rather by my friends than by myself. And what is the greatest mischief of all is, that if he proves absolutely guilty I must be merciful to him, and screen him, or never know the whole of it. This often happens when one is obliged to guard against rogues, and many a minister I dare say is wronged this very way in the opinion of half mankind." sence in England did hurt.” His false pretences had wearied and disgusted everybody. His writings overflowed with an affectation of profound statesmanship, lofty principle, and pure disinterestedness, coupled with wholesale imputations against others for abounding in the vanity, ambition, sordid motives, and stupidity to which he himself was superior. An unskilful actor of the elevated part he assumed, he verified in his own person the remark he made to Sir W. Wyndham, Jan. 1, 1740: "I am persuaded that our cunning men will be the bubbles of their cunning, and that their measures, so full of good purposes as they pretend, will serve only to unmask them of their patriotism, and show the true visage of faction that lies behind it." 1 Lord Orrery. 2 This paragraph relates to the publication of the P. T. volume of letters in 1735. Pope says "he is not quite at the bottom of that business " to account for his not entering into any details of the transaction at present, and he talks of the necessity there may be to "screen" some "person," in the event of his "proving absolutely guilty," that Lord Orrery may not be surprised at the absence of any further disclosures in the future. He was to be satisfied with the intimation that certain "friends," who are not named, had given a "commission," which is not stated, to an anonymous "person," who exceeded the suppressed instructions in a way which is not specified; and these empty phrases were all the I am ashamed to write so fluently, and talk away to you as if I had the honour of having been familiar with you many years. But if I have not, my lord, I wish I may be, and would prepare for it as fast as I can. If you can but bring over yourself and the dean, it will be a greater joy than I expect from this world. I beg to be known for one who truly honours your virtues, and must necessarily be, my lord, your most faithful and obedient servant. 2. LORD ORRERY TO POPE.1 EGMONT, August 10, 1735. SIR,-Amidst a thousand vexations and troubles to receive so kind a letter from you, gave me a most sensible pleasure. reply Pope could oppose to the disastrous evidence that had "contributed" to the "suspicion " against him. Having hinted at the secret explanation to put off Lord Orrery, he dropped the story altogether, and did not revert to it in his private communications to his intimates, nor in the public statement he afterwards prefixed to the authorised edition of his letters. Nowhere is there the faintest trace that any of his friends had given any commission to anybody. The plea thus discredited, has the second and decisive defect that it does not meet the mass of evidence which proves Pope to have been the concocter of the P. T. publication. His evasive insinuation to Lord Orrery on its origin, when applied to the established facts of the case, breaks down in every direction. The ingenuity of Pope could not devise an hypothesis in general terms which was consistent with his innocence, and much less did he dare to enter upon the details which could alone be the test of truth. 1 John, fifth Earl of Orrery, and on the death of his cousin, the Earl of Burlington, in 1753, fifth Earl of VOL. VIII. CORRESPONDENCE, VOL. Cork, was the son of the Charles Boyle whose edition of the Epistles of Phalaris originated the famous controversy with Bentley. More discriminating than the confederate wits and scholars of Christchurch who wrote in his name, Charles Boyle perceived the weakness of their showy, superficial learning; and Atterbury, the principal cooperator in the work, upbraided him for his lukewarm reception of their labours. "The highest you could prevail with yourself to go in your opinion of the book 'was that you hoped it would do you no harm.'' Atterbury went on to assume that the book had been triumphant, and adopts the tone of an injured and indignant benefactor. The immortal reply of Bentley soon vindicated the misgivings of Boyle, and abashed the premature confidence of Atterbury. In March, 1706, Charles Boyle married Lady Elizabeth Cecil, the daughter of the Earl of Exeter; and John, the friend of Pope and Swift, was born Jan. 2, 1707. Lady Elizabeth, who is said to have been beautiful and accomplished, died at the age of 21, and her husband subsequently formed some illicit III. B B Be assured I shall always endeavour to deserve your friendship. You shall have my hand and heart. Sure my fortune is beginning to change, and my most ardent wishes are at length to be accomplished, for at the same time that you allow me the liberty to enlist myself among your humble servants, I am crowned with victory in all my lawsuits.' My affairs here are taking such a turn that I hope not only to be with you at the expiration of a twelvemonth, but to stay many years in my native country without taking a journey to this empoverished and desolate island. I have lately passed a week at Cork with our mutual friend Dean Ward. His ac quaintance with me began in sorrow. He attended one of the best women that ever lived in her latest moments, and connections, for which Eustace Bud- he had altered the resentful clause in his will, and his son, stung by the reproach, set his heart upon acquiring a reputation in letters. He was far from inheriting the vigour of understanding which distinguished many of his race, and his writings are a mimicry of powers he did not possess. His courtesy and generosity were conspicuous. Johnson says that "if he had been rich he would have been a very liberal patron," and that his civility was so universal that nobody thanked him for it. The value of it was weakened by exaggerated expressions, and a taste for reciprocal praise, which are faults that glare on both sides in the correspondence with Pope. He died Nov. 22, 1762. 1 Against his father's Irish agent, who had been guilty of enormous peculations. The Rev. James Ward, who contributed some verses to Pope's Miscellany. If he was the Mr. Ward, whose death Swift mentions in a letter to Lady Betty Germain, June 15, 1736, he was Dean of Cloyne, and the value of his deanery, which he probably held in conjunction with other preferment, was only from 401. to 50l. a year. blessed one of the purest souls that Heaven has or will receive into its mansions.' She was much fitter for the place she is gone to than for my arms; and the Almighty justice was doubly manifest in her death, by punishing me and rewarding her. But why do I mention this? I would have you partake of my joys and not of my afflictions. To make you some amends (for I know your humanity will plunge you into the torrent of my woe), let me tell you that the Dean of St. Patrick's is well. I have this day seen a gentleman from Dublin who brought me a letter from him. In the place where I am we live in a state of ignorance many weeks together, and know nothing but how beef and butter sell by the pound. It will be a most charitable act in you, dear sir, to enliven me a little by your correspondence. I will be mighty reasonable in my expectations, well knowing how much better you can employ your time; but assure yourself of this truth, that not even the muses are more devoted to you than your very faithful and obedient servant. 3. POPE TO LORD ORRERY. TWITENHAM, Oct. 8, 1735. MY LORD, I begin to be sick of conversing with worthy men; they have so many tendernesses, and such goodness of nature, that they are eternally in affliction for themselves, or for others; and I cannot help feeling and bearing a part in it. Therefore you are the most uneasy of all correspondents. Your lordship opened a grief to me in your last which will hinder the thought of you, which I always hoped to make a pleasure of, from being so. Pray my lord partake your virtuous sorrows with men of more resignation,—I mean of colder natures than I, who having lost a mother, and four or five friends I dearly loved, am broken to your hands, and melt with such concerns as you express. I can only hope, my lord, that the same virtue that makes you so susceptible of feeling a loss will make 1 The first wife of Lord Orrery died after little more than four years of wedded life, Aug. 22, 1732. |