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SECTION I. 1728-30.

OST little poems should be written by a plan: this method is evident in Tibullus, and Ovid's Elegies, and almost all the pieces of the ancients. Horace's Art of Poetry was probably only fragments of what he designed; it wants the regularity that flows from the following a plan; and there are several passages in it that are hints only of a larger design. This appears as early as at the twenty-third verse,

"Denique sit, quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum,"

which looks like the proposal of a subject, on which much more was necessary to be said; and yet he goes off to another in the very next line.-Pope.

A poem on a slight subject, requires the greater care to make it considerable enough to be read. [He had been

just speaking of his Dunciad.]-P.

Garth talked in a less libertine manner, than he had

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been used to do, about the three last years of his life. He was rather doubtful, and fearful, than religious.* It was usual for him to say: “That if there was any such thing as religion 'twas among the Roman Catholics." Probably from the greater efficacy we give the Sacraments. He died a Papist; as I was assured by Mr. Blount, who carried the Father to him in his last hours. He did not take any care of himself in his last illness; and had talked, for three or four years, as one tired of life: in short, I believe he was willing to let it go.-P.

Wycherley died a Romanist, and has owned that religion in my hearing.—It was generally thought by this gentleman's friends, that he lost his memory by old age; it was not by age, but by accident, as he himself told me often. He remembered as well at sixty years old, as he had done ever since forty, when a fever occasioned that loss to him.-P.

Prior was not a right good man. He used to bury himself, for whole days and nights together, with a poor mean creature, and often drank hard. He turned from a strong whig (which he had been when most with Lord Halifax) to a violent tory; and did not care to converse with any whigs after, any more than Rowe did with tories.-P.

Sir John Suckling was an immoral man, as well as debauched. The story of the French cards† was told me by

*Note by Mr. Spence from MS. B.-Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true.-DR. YOUNG from Addison himself, or Tickell, which is much the sume.

His getting certain marks, known only to himself, affixed to all the cards that came from the great makers in France.-Spence.

the late Duke of Buckingham; and he had it from old Lady Dorset herself.-P.

That lady took a very odd pride in boasting of her familiarities with Sir John Suckling. She is the Mistress and Goddess in his poems; and several of those pieces were given by herself to the printer. This the Duke of Buckingham used to give as one instance of the fondness she had to let the world know how well they were acquainted.-P.

Sir John Suckling was a man of great vivacity, and spirit. He died about the beginning of the Civil War ; and his death was occasioned by a very uncommon accident. He entered warmly into the King's interests; and was sent over to the continent by him, with some letters of great consequence, to the Queen.* He arrived late at Calais; and in the night his servant ran away with his portmanteau, in which was his money and papers. When he was told of this in the morning, he immediately inquired which way his servant had taken, ordered his horses to be got ready instantly, and in pulling on his boots, found one of them extremely uneasy to him: but, as the horses were at the door, he leaped into his saddle, and forgot his pain. He pursued his servant so eagerly, that he overtook him two or three posts off; recovered his portmanteau; and, soon after, complained of a vast pain in one of his feet, and fainted away with it. When they came to pull off his boots, to fling him into bed, they found one of them full of blood. It seems his servant, (who knew his master's temper well, and was sure he would pursue him as soon as his

* Henrietta Maria went to Holland about the end of February, 1642; and returned in February, 1643.

into

villany should be discovered,) had driven a nail up one of his boots, in hopes of disabling him from pursuing him. Sir John's impetuosity made him regard the pain only just at first; and his pursuit turned him from the thoughts of it for some time after however, the wound was so bad, and so much inflamed, that it flung him into a violent fever, which ended his life in a very few days. This incident, strange as it may seem, might be proved from some original letters in Lord Oxford's collection.-P.

It was a general opinion, that Ben Jonson and Shakespeare lived in enmity against one another. Betterton has assured me often, that there was nothing in it: and that such a supposition was founded only on the two parties, which in their lifetime listed under one, and endeavoured to lessen the character of the other mutually.-Dryden used to think that the verses Jonson made on Shakespeare's death, had something of satire at the bottom; for my part, I can't discover anything like it in them.*—P.

Lord Rochester was of a very bad turn of mind as well as debauched. [From the Duke of Buckingham and others that knew him.-P.

Mr. Pope's life, that was so valuable to the world, was in danger several times; and the first, so early as when he was a child in coats. A wild cow that was driven by the place where he was at play, struck at him with her horns; tore off his hat, wounded him in the throat; beat him down, and trampled over him.—Mrs. Racket, his sister, who was older than him; and was by when it happened.

* Ben Jonson was found reading Horace by the great Camden, and it was he who sent him to the University of Cambridge.—MR. POPE. (Addition from MS. B.)

His second escape was when he was about two-and-twenty. He was travelling in a coach by night; and with a coachman that did not know the road so well as he should have done. They were to cross the Thames; and the coachman drove into the water: but after they were a little way in, the horses stopped short; and all his swearing and whipping could not make them stir a foot on. Some passengers that happened to come by just in the height of his endeavouring to force them to go on, called to the man, and told him that his horses had more sense than himself; that the Thames was not fordable there, that they were just on the brink of a hole twice as deep as the coach; and that if they had proceeded a step farther, they must all have been lost. So he drew back, and got out of the river again, and they were very glad to lie at a little alehouse on the bank they had just quitted.-P.

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His third danger was in a coach too; with six spirited horses. They took fright, run away; and overturned the coach, with him only in it, into a ditch full of water. was almost suffocated there; and broke the glass with his hand to let in the air: but as the coach sunk deeper the water gained very fast upon him; and he was taken out but just time enough to save him from being drowned.-P.

Beside these, his perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) reduced him in four years time to so bad a state of health; that, after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper; and sat down calmly, in a full expectation of death in a short time. Under this thought he wrote letters to take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends; and among the rest, one to the Abbé Southcote. The Abbé was ex