not one fine lady belonging to her, or her house. She is impatient to be governed, and is cheerfully determined, that you shall quietly enjoy your own will and pleasure as long as ever you please. MR. GAY. You shall ride, you shall walk, and she will be glad to follow your example: and this will be doing good at the same time to her and yourself. I had not heard from you so long, that I was in fears about you, and in the utmost impatience for a letter. I had flattered myself, your lawsuit was at an end, and that your own money was in your own pocket; and about a month ago, I was every day expecting a summons to Bristol. Your money is either getting or losing something; for I have placed it in the funds. For I am grown so much a man of business, that is to say, so covetous, that I cannot bear to let a sum of money lie idle. Your friend Mrs. Howard is now countess of Suffolk. I am still so much a dupe, that I think you mistake her. Come to Amesbury, and you and I will dispute this matter; and the duchess shall be judge. But I fancy you will object against her; for I will be so fair to you, as to own; that I think she is of my side: but, in short, you shall choose any impartial referee you please. I have heard from her; Mr. Pope has seen her; I beg you would suspend your judgment till we talk over this affair together; for, I fancy, by your letter, you have neither heard from her, or seen her, so that you cannot at present be as good a judge as we are. I will be a dupe for you at any time, therefore I beg it of you, that you would let me be a dupe in quiet. As you have had several attacks of the giddiness you at present complain of, and that it has formerly left you, I will hope, that at this instant you are perfectly well; though my fears were so very great, before I received your letter, that I may probably flatter myself, and think you better than you are. As to my being a manager for the duke, you have been misinformed. Upon the discharge of an unjust steward, he took the administration into his own hands. I own, I was called in to his assistance, when the state of affairs was in the greatest confusion. Like an ancient Roman, I came, put my helping hand to set affairs right, and as soon as it was done, I am retired again as a private man. THE DUCHESS. WHAT you imagined you heard her say, was a good deal in her style: it was a thousand to one she had said so, but I must do her the justice to say, that she did not, either in thought or word. I am sure she wants to be better acquainted with you, for which she has found out ten thousand reasons, that we will tell if you will come. you, MR. GAY. By your letter, I cannot guess whether we are likely to see you or not. Why might not the Amesbury downs make you DEAR SIR, better? THE DUCHESS. MR. GAY tells me, I must write upon his line for fear of taking up too much room. It was his fault that I omitted my duty in his last letter, for he never told me one word of writing to you, till he had sent away his letter. However, as a mark of my great humility, humility, I shall be ready and glad to ask you pardon upon my knees, as soon as ever you come, though not in fault. I own this is a little mean spirited, which I hope will not make a bad impression, considering you are the occasion. I submit to all your conditions, so pray, come; for, I have not only promised myself, but Mr. Gay also, the satisfaction to hear you talk as much nonsense as you can possibly utter. MR. GAY. You will read in the Gazette of a friend of yours, who has lately had the dignity of being disgraced*: for he, and every body, except five or six, look upon it in the same light. I know, were you here, you would congratulate him upon it. I paid the twelve pounds to Mrs. Lancelot, for the uses you directed. I have no scheme at present, either to raise my fame or fortune. I daily reproach myself for my idleness. You know one cannot write when one will. I think and reject: one day or other, perhaps, I may think on something that may engage me to write. You and I are alike in one particular, I wish to be so in many; I mean, that we hate to write upon other folks hints. I love to have my own scheme, and to treat it in my own way. This, perhaps, may be taking too much upon myself, and I may make a bad choice; but I can always enter into a scheme of my own with more ease and pleasure, than into that of any other body. I long to see you; I long to hear from you; I wish you health; I wish you happiness; and I should be very happy myself to be witness that you enjoyed my wishes. * William Pulteney, esq., who on the 1st of July, 1731, was, by order of king George II, struck out of the list of the privy council, and put out of all the commissions of the peace. ΤΟ DEAR SIR, TO MR. POPE. JULY, 20, 1731. I WRIT you a long letter not many days ago, which therefore did not arrive until after your last that I received yesterday, with the enclosed from me to the queen. You hinted something of this in a former letter I will tell you sincerely how the affair stands. I never was at Mrs. Barber's house in my life, except once that I chanced to pass by her shop, was desired to walk in, and went no farther, nor staid three minutes. Dr. Delany has been long her protector; and he, being many years my acquaintance, desired my good offices for her, and brought her several times to the deanery. I knew she was poetically given, and, for a woman, had a sort of genius that way. She appeared very modest and pious, and I believe was sincere; and wholly turned to poetry. I did conceive her journey to England was on the score of her trade, being a woollendraper, until Dr. Delany said, she had a design of printing her poems by subscription, and desired I would befriend her which I did, chiefly by your means; the doctor still urging me on: upon whose request I writ to her two or three times, because she thought that my countenancing her might be of use. Lord Carteret very much befriended her, and she seems to have made her way not ill. As for those three letters you mention, supposed all to be written by me to the queen, on Mrs. Barber's account, especially the letter letter which bears my name; I can only say, that the apprehensions one may be apt to have of a friend's doing a foolish thing, is an effect of kindness and God knows who is free from playing the fool some time or other. But in such a degree as to write to the queen, who has used me ill without any cause, and to write in such a manner as the letter you sent me, and in such a style, and to have so much zeal for one almost a stranger, and to make such a description of a woman as to prefer her before all mankind; and to instance it as one of the greatest grievances of Ireland, that her majesty has not encouraged Mrs. Barber, a woollendraper's wife declined in the world, because she has a knack at versifying; was to suppose, or fear, a folly so transcendent, that no man could be guilty of, who was not fit for Bedlam. You know the letter you sent enclosed is not my hand; and why I should disguise, and yet sign my name, should seem unaccountable especially when I am taught, and have reason to believe, that I am under the queen's displeasure on many accounts, and one very late, for having fixed up a stone over the burying place of the duke of Schomberg, in my cathedral: which, however, I was assured by a worthy person, who solicited that affair last summer with some relations of the duke, "That her majesty, on hearing the mat"ter, said they ought to erect a monument." I am told assuredly, that the king not long ago, on the representation and complaint of the Prussian envoy (with a hard name) who has married a granddaughter of the duke, said publickly in the drawingroom, "That I had put up that store out of malice, "to raise a quarrel between his majesty and the king : Yet "" of |