‡POPE to CONGREVE This letter has seemed — chiefly because of a perhaps too casual footnote by Pope in 1735 (below, note 3) — a fabricated composite. An attack by Dennis would hardly be a 'scandal'; but if Congreve had warned Pope that the Buttonians (Burnet and Duckett) were preparing attacks before they had seen the translation, their work might seem scandalous. The Buttonians were doing precisely that. But Pope said the critic was Dennis. ^†2
16 January 1714/15

1735

Jan. 16, 1714-15.

Methinks when I write to you, I am making a confession, I have got (I can't tell how) such a custom of throwing my self out upon paper without reserve. You were not mistaken in what you judg'd of  my temper of mind when I writ last. My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not . The cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better prov'd, than in discovering its own faults at first view: as when a Stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water.

My spleen was not occasion'd however  , by any thing an abusive, Dennis, who writ an abusive Pamphlet this Year, intitled, Remarks on Mr. Pope's Homer. — Pope 1735. This note was omitted from all Pope's editions after 1735. Dennis's Remarks were published in 1717, and could hardly be written before Homer was published. ^†3 angry Critick could write of me. I take very kindly your heroick manner of congratulation upon this scandal; for I think nothing more honourable, than to be involved in the same fate with all the great and the good that ever lived; that is, to be envy'd and censur'd by bad writers.

You do no more than answer my expectations of you, in declaring how well you take my freedom in sometimes neglecting as I do, to reply to your Letters so soon as I ought; those who have a right taste of the substantial part of friendship, can wave the ceremonial. A friend is the only one that will bear the omission; and one may find who is not so, by the very trial of it.

As to any anxiety I have concerning the fate of my Homer, the care is over with me. The world must be the judge, and I shall be the first to consent to the justice of its judgment, whatever it be. I am not so arrant an Author, as even to desire, that if I am in the wrong, all mankind should be so.

I am mightily pleas'd with a saying of Monsieur Tourreil: "When a Man writes, he ought to animate himself with the thoughts of pleasing all the world: but he is to renounce that desire or hope, the very moment the Book goes out of his hands." Jacques de Tourreil prefixed to his French translation of Demosthenes a 'Préface historique', of the final sentence of which the quoted passage is a translation. The passage may be found in Several Orations of Demosthenes ... English'd from the Greek by Several Hands. To which is prefix'd the Historical Preface of Monsr. Tourreil (1702), but Pope does not use this English version for his passage. ^†1

I write this from Binfield, whither I came yesterday, having past a few days in my way with my Lord Bolingbroke: The Political State of Great Britain (ix. 80) records that after a fortnight in town Bolingbroke left for the country on 15 Jan. of this year. The mention is evidence of the early intimacy of Pope and his later 'guide'. ^†2 I go to London in three days time, and will not fail to pay a visit to Mr. M——, Possibly Mr. (later Sir) Paul Methuen, who in 1716 as Secretary of State forwarded letters from Pope or from Congreve to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Constantinople. ^†3 whom I saw not long since at my Lord Halifax's. I hoped from thence he had some hopes of advantage from the present administration: for few people (I think) but I, pay respects to great Men without any prospects. I am in the fairest way in the world of being not worth a groat, being born both a Papist and a Poet. This puts me in mind of reacknowledging your continued endeavours to enrich me: But I can tell you 'tis to no purpose, for without the Opes, Æquum animum mi animum mi] mi animum 1737-42. ^†4 ipse parabo. | I am your, &c.