lebrated personages appear, in the mere mortal works of our painters.

Mr. Fortescue is much yours: Gay commemorates you; and lastly (to climb by just steps and degrees) my Lord Burlington desires you may be put in mind of him. His gardens flourish, his structures rise, his pictures arrive, and (what is far more valuable than all) his own good qualities daily extend themselves to all about him: of whom I, the meanest (next to some Italian fiddlers, and English bricklayers) am a living instance. Adieu.

LETTER XIV.

TO MR. JERVAS IN IRELAND.

November 14, 1716.

If I had not done my utmost to lead my life so pleasantly as to forget all misfortunes, I should tell you I reckoned your absence no small one; but I hope you have also had many good and pleasant reasons to forget your friends on this side the world. If a wish could transport me to you and your present companions, I could do the same. Dr. Swift, I believe, is a very good landlord, and a cheerful host at his own table: I suppose he has perfectly learnt himself, what he has taught so many others, rupta non insanire lagena: else he would not make a proper host for your humble servant, who (you know) though he drinks a glass

as seldom as any man, contrives to break one as often. But it is a consolation to me, that I can do this, and many other enormities, under my own roof.

But that you and I are upon equal terms, in all friendly laziness, and have taken an inviolable oath to each other, always to do what we will, I should reproach you for so long a silence. The best amends you can make for saying nothing to me, is by saying all the good you can of me, which is, that I heartily love and esteem the Dean and Dr. Parnelle.

Gay is yours and theirs. His spirit is awakened very much in the cause of the Dean, which has broke forth in a courageous couplet or two upon Sir Richard Blackmore: he has printed it with his name to it, and bravely assigns no other reason, than that the said Sir Richard has abused Dr. Swift. I have also suffered in the like cause, and shall suffer more unless Parnelle sends me his Zoilus and Book-worm (which the Bishop of Clogher, I hear, greatly extols) it will be shortly concurrere Bellum atque Virum-I love you all, as much as I despise most wits in this dull country. Ireland has turned the tables upon England; and if I have no poetical friend in my own nation, I will be as proud as Scipio, and say (since I am reduced to skin and bone) Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habeas.

LETTER XV.

TO MR. JERVAS IN IRELAND.

November 29, 1716.

THAT you have not heard from me of late, ascribe not to the usual laziness of your correspondent, but to a ramble to Oxford, where your name is mentioned with honour, even in a land flowing with Tories. I had the good fortune there to be often in the conversation of Dr. Clarke:* he entertained me with several drawings, and particularly with the original designs of Inigo Jones's Whitehall. I there saw and reverenced some of your first pieces; which future painters are to look upon as we poets do on the Culex of Virgil, and Batrachom. of Homer.

Having named this latter piece, give me leave to ask what is become of Dr. Parnelle and his frogs?+ Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis, might be Horace's wish, but will never be mine while I have such meorums as Dr. Parnelle and Dr. Swift. I hope the spring will restore you to us, and with you all the beauties and colours of nature. Not but I congratulate you on the pleasure you must take in being admired in your own country, which

* Of All Souls College in Oxford; a virtuoso and man of taste. The drawings here mentioned he bequeathed to the Library of Worcester College in Oxford. Warton.

+ He translated the Batrachom. of Homer, which is printed amongst his poems.

Warburton.

so seldom happens to prophets and poets; but in this you have the advantage of poets; you are master of an art that must prosper and grow rich, as long as people love, or are proud of themselves, or their own persons. However, you have stayed long enough, methinks, to have painted all the numberless Histories of old Ogygia. If you have begun to be historical, I recommend to your hand the story which every pious Irishman ought to begin with, that of St. Patrick; to the end you may be obliged (as Dr. P. was when he translated the Batrachomyomachia) to come into England, to copy the frogs, and such other vermin as were never seen in that land since the time of the Confessor.

I long to see you a history painter.* You have already done enough for the private; do something for the public; and be not confined, like the rest, to draw only such silly stories as our own faces tell of us. The ancients too expect you should do them right: those statues from which you learned your beautiful and noble ideas, demand it as a piece of gratitude from you, to make them truly known to all nations, in the account you intend to write of their characters. I hope you think more warmly than ever of that design.

As to your inquiry about your house,† when I

* The partiality of friendship must excuse this wish. Jervas had no pretensions, nor any thing like genius, for history-painting. Warton.

† Pope resided in Jervas's house on his occasional visits to London, during Jervas's absence in Ireland.

come within the walls, they put me in mind of those of Carthage, where your friend, like the wandering Trojan,

animum Pictura pascit inani.

For the spacious mansion, like a Turkish Caravanserah, entertains the vagabonds with only bare lodging. I rule the family very ill, keep bad hours, and lend out your pictures about the town. See what it is to have a poet in your house! Frank indeed does all he can in such a circumstance; for, considering he has a wild beast in it, he constantly keeps the door chained. Every time it is opened, the links rattle, the rusty hinges roar. The house seems so sensible that you are its support, that it is ready to drop in your absence; but I still trust myself under its roof, as depending that Providence will preserve so many Raphaels, Titians, and Guidos, as are lodged in your cabinet. Surely the sins of one poet can hardly be so heavy, as to bring an old house over the heads of so many painters. In a word, your house is falling; but what of that? I am only a lodger.*

LETTER XVI.

TO MR. JERVAS.

December 21, 1718.

THE old project of a window in the bosom, to render the soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even

* Alluding to the story of the Irishman. Warburton.