I beg you to be altogether silent in the matter. Mr. Pope has used so little of the 23d Odyssey that I gave Dr. Younge, that if I put it in among the rest

I shall hardly incur any danger of the penalty concerning the patent. However, I will not presume to publish a single line of it after Mr. Pope's Translation, if you advise me (as I desire you to do sincerely) to the contrary. I shall send you a small specimen of my Translation, which if you approve of, I can assure you the remainder of the book is not inferior to it.

THE nurse all wild with transport seem'd to swim,
Joy wing'd her feet and lighten'd every limb;
Then to the room with speed impatient borne
Flew with the tidings of her lord's return.
There bending o'er the sleeping Queen, she cries,
Rise, my Penelope, my daughter, rise
To see Ulysses thy long absent spouse,
Thy soul's desire and lord of all thy vows:
Tho' late, he comes, and in his rage has slain,
For all their wrongs, the haughty suitor train.
Ah Euryclea, she replies, you rave;

The gods resume that reason which they gave;
For Heav'n deep wisdom to the fool supplies,
But oft infatuates and confounds the wise.
And wisdom once was thine! but now I find
The gods have ruin'd thy distemper'd mind.
How could you hope your fiction to impose?
Was it to flatter or deride my woes?
How could you break a sleep with talk so vain
That held my sorrows in so soft a chain?

A sleep so sweet I never could enjoy
Since my dear lord left Ithaca for Troy :
Curst Troy-oh! why did I thy name disclose?
Thy fatal name awakens all my woes:
But fly-some other had provok'd my rage,
And you but owe your pardon to your age.
No artful tales, no studied lies, I frame,
Ulysses lives (rejoins the rev'rend dame)

In that dishonour'd stranger's close disguise,
Long has he past all unsuspecting eyes,
All but thy son's-and long has he supprest
The well-concerted secret in his breast;
Till his brave father should his foes defeat,
And the close scheme of his revenge complete.
Swift as the word the Queen transported sprung,
And round the dame in strict embraces hung;
Then as the big round tears began to roll,
Spoke the quick doubts and hurry of her soul.
If my victorious hero safe arrives,

If my dear lord Ulysses still survives,
Tell me, oh tell me, how he fought alone?
How were such multitudes destroy'd by one?
Nought I beheld, but heard their cries, she said,
When death flew raging, and the suitors bled:
Immur'd we listen'd, as we sat around,
To each deep groan and agonizing sound.
Call'd by thy son to view the scene I fled,
And saw Ulysses striding o'er the dead!
Amidst the rising heaps the hero stood
All grim, and terribly adorn'd with blood.

This is enough in conscience for this time; besides I am desired by Mr. Pope or Mr. Lintot, I don't know which, to write to Mr. Pope on a certain affair.

LETTER CVI.

MR. POPE TO DR. PARNELLE.

London, July 29.

DEAR SIR, I WISH it were not as ungenerous as vain, to complain too much of a man that forgets me, but I could expostulate with you a whole day upon your inhuman silence; I call it inhuman; nor would you

think it less, if you were truly sensible of the uneasiness it gives me. Did I know you so ill as to think you proud, I would be much less concerned than I am able to be, when I know one of the best-natured men alive neglects me; and if you know me so ill as to think amiss of me, with regard to my friendship for you, you really do not deserve half the trouble you occasion me. I need not tell you that both Mr. Gay and myself have written several Letters in vain; that we are constantly enquiring of all who have seen Ireland, if they saw you, and that (forgotten as we are) we are every day remembering you in our most agreeable hours. All this is true; as that we are sincerely lovers of you, and deplorers of your absence; and that we form no wish more ardently than that which brings you over to us. We have lately had some distant hopes of the Dean's design to revisit England; will not you accompany him? or is England to lose every thing that has any charms for us, and must we pray for banishment as a benediction? I have once been witness of some, I hope all, of your splenetic hours; come and be a comforter in your turn to me, in mine. turn to me, in mine. I am in such an unsettled state, that I can't tell if I shall ever see you, unless it be this year; whether I do or not, be ever assured, you have as large a share of my thoughts and good wishes as any man, and as great a portion of gratitude in my heart, as would enrich a monarch, could he know where to find it. I shall not die without testifying something of this nature, and leaving to the world a memorial of the friendship that has been so great a pleasure and pride

to me. It would be like writing my own epitaph, to acquaint you with what I have lost since I saw you, what I have done, what I have thought, where I have lived, and where I now repose in obscurity. My friend Jervas, the bearer of this, will inform you of all particulars concerning me; and Mr. Ford is charged with a thousand loves, and a thousand complaints, and a thousand commissions to you, on my part. They will both tax you with the neglect of some promises which were too agreeable to us all to be forgot; if you care for any of us, tell them so, and write so to me. I can say no more, but that I love you, and am, in spite of the longest neglect or absence, Dear Sir,

Your, etc.

Gay is in Devonshire, and from thence he goes to Bath; my father and mother never fail to commemorate you.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER CVII.

TO THE SAME.

Binfield, near Oakingham,
Tuesday.

I BELIEVE the hurry you were in hindered your giving me a word by the last post, so that I am yet to learn whether you got well to town, or continue so there. I very much fear both for your health and your quiet; and no man living can be more truly concerned in any thing that touches either, than my

self. I would comfort myself, however, with hoping that your business may not be unsuccessful, for your sake; and that, at least, it may soon be put into other proper hands. For my own, I beg earnestly of you to return to us as soon as possible. You know how very much I want you, and that, however your business may depend upon any other, my business depends entirely upon you, and yet still I hope you will find your man, even though I lose you the mean while. At this time the more I love you, the more I can spare you; which alone will, I dare say, be a reason to you, to let me have you back the sooner. The minute I lost you, Eustathius with nine hundred pages, and nine thousand contractions of the Greek character, arose to my view! Spondanus, with all his auxiliaries, in number a thousand pages (value three shillings), and Dacier's three volumes, Barne's two, Valterie's three, Cuperus, half in Greek; Leo Allatius three parts in Greek; Scaliger, Macrobius, and (worse than them all) Aulus Gellius! All these rushed upon my soul at once, and whelmed me under a fit of the head-ach. Dear Sir, not only as you are a friend, and a good-natured man; but as you are a Christian and a divine, come back speedily, and prevent the increase of my sins; for at the rate I have begun to rave, I shall not only damn all the poets and commentators, who have gone before me, but be damned myself, by all who come after me. To be serious, you have not only left me to the last degree impatient for your return, who at all times should have been so (though never so much as since I knew you in best health here); but you have