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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	declare_v	desert_n	great_a	20	3	2.0850	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35671	Letters upon several occasions written by and between Mr. Dryden, Mr. Wycherly, Mr. ----, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis, published by Mr. Dennis with a new translation of select letters of Monsieur Voiture.	Dennis, John, 1657-1734.; Dryden, John, 1631-1700.; Wycherley, William, 1640-1716.; Congreve, William, 1670-1729.; Voiture, Monsieur de (Vincent), 1597-1648.	1696 (1696)	Wing D1033; ESTC R6297	77,708	226

all over the Kingdom and Gentlemen were depriving Peasants of their little Reason in order to obtain their Voices Mr. Montague's Merit while he was silent sollicited for him so importunately that it prevail'd upon a number of considerable Inhabitants of the Politer parts of the Town to come and make it their humble Request to you to Honour them by Representing them which puts me in mind of a Saying of De la Bruiere That the People are then at their height of Happiness when their King makes Choice for his Con●idents and for his Ministers of the very same Persons that the People would have chosen if the Choice had been in their power This at present is our own Case for doubtless the same People who without any Brigue or the least Corruption came voluntarily to entreat you to suffer them to place you in the Great Council of the Kingdom would if the Choice had been in their power have plac'd you in the Privy-Council and they who frankly offer'd to trust you with the disposal of the Mony which is in their Houses would have trusted you had it been in their power with the Intendency of that in the Treasury So that the Peoples proffer to Chuse you seems to me to be a loud Approbation of the Choice which the King had made before of you and of your Ministration upon that Choice But I injure the Publick while I detain you Yet give me leave to end with my Zealous Wishes for you that the Happiness may be multiplied on you which you so nobly seek to communicate that you may encrease in Riches and Honours faster than you advance in Years till you arrive at that height of Prosperity which may be answerable to your high Desert and till Fortune may be said to pour down her Gifts upon you in Emulation of Art and Nature Yet Envy after all shall be forced to declare that Mr. Montague sprung from an Illustrious Stock and loaded with Plenty and Honours is yet nobler by Desert than he is by Descent and greater by Virtue than he is by Fortune I am Sir Your most Humble And most Obedient Servant John Dennis To the READER I Once resolved to have a long Preface before this little Book but the Impression has been so long retarded by the Fault of those who had the care of it that I have now neither Time nor Humour to execute what I intended I shall therefore only give a Compendious Account of what I proposed to have treated of more at large I designed in the first place to have said something of the Nature and of the end of a Letter and thought to have prov'd that the Invention of it was to supply Conversation and not to imitate it for that nothing but the Dialogue was capable of doing that from whence I had drawn this Conclusion that the Style of a Letter was neither to come quite up to that of Conversation nor yet to keep at too great a distance from it After that I determined to shew that all Conversation is not familiar that it may be Ceremonious that it may be Grave nay that it may be Sublime or that Tragedy must be allow'd to be out of Nature That if the Sublime were easy and unconstrain'd it might be as consistent with the Epistolary Style as it was with the Didactique that Voiture had admirably joyn'd it with one of them and Longinus with both After this I resolv'd to have said something of th●se who had most succeeded in Letters amongst the Ancients and Moderns and to have treated of their Excellencies and their Defects To have spoken more particularly of Cicero and Pliny amongst the Ancients and amongst the Moderns of Balzac and Voiture to have sh●wn that Cicero is too simple and too dry and that Pliny is too affected and too refined that one of them has too much of Art in him and that both of them have too little of Nature That the Elevation of Balzac was frequently forced and his Sublime affected that his Thoughts were often above his Subject and his Expression almost always above his Thoughts and that whatsoever his Subjects were his Style was seldom alter'd that Voiture was easiy and unconstrain'd and natural when he was most exalted that he seldom endeavoured to be witty at the expence of right Reason But that as his Thoughts were for the most part true and just his Expression was often defective and that his Style was too little diversifyed That for my own part as I came infinitely short of the extraordinary Qualities of these great Men I thought my self obliged to endeavour the rather to avoid their Faults and that consequently I had taken all the care that I could not to think out of Nature and good Sense and neither to force nor neglect my Expression and that I had always taken care to suit my Style to my Subject whether it was Familiar or Sublime or Di●ctique and and that I had more or less varied it in every Letter All this and more I designed to have said at large which I have only hinted now in a hurry I have nothing to add but to desire the Reader to excuse my bad Performance upon the account of my good Endeavour and for striving to do well in a manner of Writing which is at all times useful and at this Time necessary a manner in which the English would surpass both the Ancients and Moderns if they would but cultivate it for the very same Reasons that they have surpassed them in Comedy But methinks I have a Title to the Readers Favour for I have more than made amends for the defects of my own Letters by entertaining him with those of my Friends A COLLECTION OF LETTERS Written by several Eminent Hands To Walter Moyle Esq Dear Sir YOU know that a Grave Fellow assures us that upon the Cessation of Oracles Lamentable Crys were heard in the Air proclaiming along the Coasts the Death of the Great Pan And have not you upon this dearth of good Sense and this Cessation of Wit tell me truly have not you heard These sounds upon the Cornish Shore The Sage Will E is no more ●one is the Universal Lord of Wit He to whom all the Wits paid Homage For whom his Subjects set a Tax upon Words and laid exorbitant Customs on Thoughts He 's Dead alas He 's Dead Dead I mean Sir in a Legal Capacity that is Out-law'd and gone into the Fryars to go into which is once more to Out-law himself He has done it Sir and and ill Fortune has brought him to be a Felo de se that way For since the Law thought it but Just to put Will out of its Protection Will thought it but prudent to put himself out of its Power And since the Law could use him with so much C●ntempt as to declare to all the World that it does not care for Will E Will who is extreamly stout in Advers●ty has declar'd by his Actions

LETTERS Upon several OCCASIONS Written by and between Mr. Dryden Mr. Wycherly Mr. Mr. Congreve and Mr. Dennis Published by Mr. DENNIS With a New Translation of Select LETTERS of Monsieur Voiture LONDON Printed for Sam. Briscoe at the Corner-Shop of Charles-Street in Russel-Street in Covent Garden 1696. To the Right Honourable Charles Montague Esq One of the Lords of the Treasury Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council SIR AS soon as I had resolv'd to make this Address to you that the Present might not be altogether unworthy of you I took care to obtain the Consent of my Friends to publish some Letters which they had writ as Answers to mine When I look upon my self I find I have reason to beg pardon for my Presumption But when I consider those Gentlemen I am encourag'd to hope that you will not be offended to find your self at the Head of no Vulgar Company a Company whose Names and Desert are universally known a Company rais'd far above the level of Mankind by their own extraordinary Merit and yet proud to do Homage to yours They are Gentlemen 't is true who are divided in their Interests and who differ in their Politick Principles but they agree in their Judgments of Things which all the World admires and they always consent when they speak of you In presenting this little Book to you I only design'd to shew my Zeal and my Gratitude but they assure me unanimously that I have likewise shewn my Judgment Tho indeed Sir the number of the Great who cast a favourable Eye upon Human Learning is not so considerable but that a Man who would Address any thing of this nature to one of them may soon determine his choice Proficients in other Arts are encouraged by Profit which is their main Design but he who bestows all his time upon Human Studies is incited by Glory alone and the World takes care that he should have no more than he seeks for The Enthusiast the Quack the Pettifogger are rewarded for Torturing and for deluding Men but Humanity has met with very barbarous Usage only for pleasing and for instructing them The very Court which draws most of its Ornament from it has but too often neglected it there Learning in general has been disregarded For none but great Souls are capable of great Designs and few Courtiers have had Greatness of Mind enough to procure the Promotion of Science which is the Exaltation of Human Nature and the Enlargement of the Empire of Reason Our Ministers of State have formerly behaved themselves with so much indifference as if it would have lessen'd them to have taken any care of Letters They have shewn themselves as perfectly unconcern'd as if not one had discover'd that at a time when our Neighbors are grown so knowing the Publick Safety depends on the Progress of Learning and that to Patronize Science is to take care of the State Besides too many of our States-men have been engag'd in unjust Designs Most of our Politicians have done their endeavour to encroach on the Crown or to attempt on the People Few have had Capacity and Integrity enough to keep the Balance so steady as to maintain Prerogative at once and assert Privilege to serve the King Zealously and their Country Faithfully to possess at the same time the Favour of the one and the Hearts of the other to such a degree as to be courted by the People to serve as their Representative at the very time that they are employ'd by the King in Matters of the highest Importance Instead of that most of them have had reason to be afraid of the King or the Commons and Men who have been sollicitous for their own Safety have seldom appear'd concern'd for the good of others Few then have been and are in a Condition to be Protectors of Learning and therefore those happy few deserve all the Honours which we are able to pay them Of those Sir you appear in the foremost Rank and are to the Common-wealth of Learning what you are to the State a great Defence and a shining Ornament You have warmly encouraged all sorts of Studies but have been justly and nobly partial to those for which the State has made no Provision Which is enough to gain you the Esteem of all who have any regard for Learning and to win the very Souls of all who like me are charm'd with the softer Studies of Humanity For which your Zeal has been so diffusive that it has extended it self even to me tho' a bare Inclination to cultivate Eloquence and Poetry was the only thing which could recommend me to ●ou Yet even this has been encourag'd by the promise of your Protection and by the Humanity of your receiving me The access which I have had to you has been the greatest Obligation that you could lay upon a Man who has still valu'd Merit above all the World and who has sought his Improvement more than he has his Advancement When I have at any time approach'd you I have found in you none of those forbidding Qualities of which they accuse the Great Instead of those I have found an attractive and a human Greatness the generous Sincerity of the Man of Honour join'd with the Grace and Complaisance of the Courtier and a Deportment noble without Pride and Modest without descending Nature has made me something averse from making my Court to Fortune But I am proud to attend upon real Greatness and to wait upon you since first you encouraged me has been at once my Duty and my Ambition The Permission which you gave me to approach you was so great an Incitement to me that I believe it might have brought me to write well if I had not a very just reason to resolve to attempt it no more You had given me one great Encouragement before I had the Honour to see you and that was by leaving off Writing your self For Vanity is a greater Incitement to Poets than Pensions and even Want depresses the Spirits less than the thought of being surpassed Therefore while Mr. Montague Sung he Sung alone We admir'd indeed our Conquering Monarch but we admir'd in silence We rever'd the Greatness of your Genius and neglected our Talents Indeed the strength and sweetness of your Voice was fit to charm us alone and we who followed were only fit for the Chorus But you have left a Province which you have made your own to the Adminstration of those who are under you and are gone on in your victorious Progress to the Acquisition of new Glory From which I am sensible that I detract by detaining you For your Actions are your best Encomiums and the loud consent of the Nation your best Panegyrick It was a glorious one that was spoken to you by the People of Westminster in the request that they made to you to serve as their Member in the present Parliament at a time when they were Caballing

are often hardly mov'd your self when you say those admirable things with which we are transported Not that I am so far betray'd by Vanity as to take your Compliments at the Foot of the Letter or to suppose that you believ'd all that you said but I am willing for your sake to believe that you meant something of it and that not being without kindness for me which is only owing to the Sweetness of your Nature that is to your Merit and not to mine your Reason as the Duke De la Rochefoucaut says has been bubbled by your Affection And here Sir I have much the Advantage of you for when I declare that I have the greatest Opinion in the World of you none will mistrust my Sincerity and all will applaud my Discernment but you cannot express your Zeal at so high a Rate for any Friend but it must considerably lessen the World's Opinion of your Judgment But it is Mr. Wycherly's peculiar Praise never to have shewn want of Judgment in any thing unless in that only thing in which Error is Honourable How few are they who are capable of Erring at your Rate Vellem in amicitiâ sic erraremus isti Errori virtus nomen posuisset honestum And how happy is the Man who has a Friend so accomplish'd that Error in him is Virtue I am that Happy Man and am so far exalted by my Happiness that I am never less humble than when I Subscribe my self Dear Sir You most Humble and Faithful Servant Mr. Wycherly's to Mr. Dear Sir I Have had yours of the 31st of March to which I should sooner have returned an Answer had I not been forced to take a little turn out of Town but your Letter to me brought me not more satisfaction than your last to Mr. Moyle gave me disquiet for you Since by that I find how uneasie you are Yet know my Friend from one sufficiently experienced in love disasters that Love is often a kind of losing Loadam in which the loser is most often the gainer If you have been deprived of a Mistress consider you have lost a Wife and thô you are disappointed of a short satisfaction you have likewise escaped a tedious vexation which Matrimony infallibly comes to be one way or another so that your Misfortune is an accident which your true Friends should rather Felicitate than Commiserate You told me in your last that you were no more Master of your self Then how should I help rejoycing at the restoration of your Liberty A Man might as reasonably be sorry for his Friend's recovery from Madness as for his recovery from Love thô for the time a pleasant Frenzy so that your Mistress's Father has rather been your Doctor than your Enemy And you should not be angry with him if he cures you of your love distemper th● by a means a little too violent for next to his Daughters cure of love his may prove the best well pray be not angry that I can be pleas'd with any thing that can so much displease you I own my Friendship for you has a little Selfishness in it for now you cannot be so happy as you wou'd in the Countrey I hope you will make us as happy as we can be in Town which we shall be as soon as we have your company For know my Friend change of Air after a love distemper may be as good as 't is after a Fever and therefore make hast to Town where a great many Doctors have engaged to compleat your Cure Your Friends will do any thing to root out the remains of your Passion The witty Club will grow grave to instruct you and the grave Club will grow gay to delight you Wh. will turn a Philosopher and I will grow a good fellow and venture my own health for the recovery of your good Humour for I had rather be sick in your Company than for want of it who am Dear Sir Your most unalterable Friend and humble Servant W. Wycherly Postscript Pray pardon me for not writing to you before or rather for writing to you so dully now which I hope will be my best excuse for my not writing sooner All your Friends of the Coffee-house are well and what is no news to you are in spight of your Absence your constant humble Servants London April 11. 1695. To Mr. Wycherly I have a colourable excuse for my Silence ●or when you went out of Town you gave me the hopes of receiving a Letter from you as soon as you arriv'd at Cleve Besides since that I have been a month in Northamptonshire But the Inclination which I have to converse with Mr. Wycherly is too violent to receive any check from Punctillo's But alas I was restrain'd by too just an Impediment For ever since I saw you I have been so rackt by a cruel Passion that I have had no power to do any thing but to complain And your portion of Melancholly is not so small that you have need to be troubled with another Man's Spleen I would be sure to communicate my happiness to my Friend nay I could be but half happy if I did not communicate it As in love I never could be pleas'd to a height with my own pleasure if I did not find that it added to that of my Mistress But I should impart my ill humour to my Friend if I found that it were not in his power to ease me and that it were much in his inclination with as much Regret as I should acquaint him with his own ill Fortune if I were clearly convinc'd that it were not in my power to assist him You would not advise me to stifle this passion You are too well acquainted with Love and me to do that You know that that would be to perswade me to a thing which you are already sensible that I am very willing and very unable to do I blush while I show this weakness but sure there is some force of Mind requir'd to shew some sorts of weakness You remember the Maxim of the wise Duke La memê fermeté qui sert a resister al'amour Sertaussi queque fois a le rendre violent et durable If that be true I beseech you to believe that this obstinate Lover is a constant Friend too and unalterably Dear Sir Your most Humble Servant Mr. Wycherly's Letter Dear Sir I Lately received from you so kind and so witty a Reproach for my not writing to you that I can hardly repent me of my fault since it has been the occasion of my receiving so much satisfaction But you have had a reasonable excuse for your silence since you say I promis'd to write to you first which is very true and I had kept my promise but for my Conjecture that you could not stay so long out of Northamptonshire nor was I it seems mistaken in that But be assur'd Dear Sir I think there can be no better End or Design of my writing than in its

Sublimity of Sense as well as Sound and know how far the Boldness of a Poet may lawfully extend I could wish you would cultivate this kind of O●e and reduce it either to the same Measures which Pinder us'd or give new Measures of your own For as it is it looks like a vast Tract of Land newly discover'd The Soil is wonderfully Fruitful but Unma●ur'd overstock'd with Inhabitants but almost all Salvages without Laws Arts Arms or Policy I remember Poor Nat. Lee who was then upon the Verge of Madness yet made a Sober and a Witty Answer to a B●d Poet who told him It was an easie thing to write like a Madman No said he 't is a very difficult to write like a Madman but 't is a very easie matter to write like a Fool. Otway and He are safe by Death from all Attacks but we poor Poets Militant to use Mr. Cowley's Expression are at the Mercy of Wretched Scri●b●ers And when they cannot fasten upon our Verses they fall upon our Morals our Principles of State and Religion For my Principles of Religion I will not justifie them to you I know yours are far di●ferent For the same Reason I shall say nothing of my Principles of State I believe you in yours follow the Dictates of your Reason as I in mine do those of my Conscience If I thought my self in an Error I would retract it I am sure that I suffer for them and Milton makes even the Devil say That no Creature is in love with Pain For my Morals betwixt Man and Man I am not to be my own Judge I appeal to the World if I have Deceiv'd or Defrauded any Man And for my private Conversation they who see me every day can be the best Witnesses whether or no it be Blameless and Inoffensive Hitherto I have no reason to complain that Men of either Party shun my Company I have never been an Impudent Beggar at the Doors of Noblemen My Visits have indeed been too rare to be unacceptable and but just enough to testifie my Gratitude for their Bounty which I have frequently received but always unask'd as themselves will Witness I have written more than I needed to you on this Subject for I dare say you justifie me to your self As for that which I first intended for the Principal Subject of this Letter which is my Friend's Passion and his Design of Marriage on better consideration I have chang'd my Mind For having had the Honour to see my Dear Friend Wycherly's Letter to him on that occasion I find nothing to be added or amended But as well as I love Mr. Wycherly I confess I love my self so well that I will not shew how much I am inferiour to him in Wit and Judgment by undertaking any thing after him There is Moses and the Prophets in his Counsel Iupiter and Iuno as the Poets tell us made Tiresias their Umpire in a certain Merry Dispute which fell out in Heav'n betwixt them Tiresias you know had been of both Sexes and therefore was a Proper Judge our Friend Mr. Wycherly is full as competent an Arbitrator He has been a Batchelor and Marry'd Man and is now a Widower Virgil says of Ceneus Nunc Vir nunc Faemina Ceneus Rursus in veterem fato revoluta figuram Yet I suppose he will not give any large commendations to his middle State Nor as the Sailer said will be fond after a Shipwrack to put to Sea again If my Friend will Adventure after this I can but wish him a good Wind as being his and My Dear Mr. Dennis Your most Affectionate and most Faithful Servant John Dryden Written for My Lady C. to her Cousin R of the Temple By Mr. Dennis After she had received from him a Copy of Verses on her Beauty Cousin I Received yours with the Verses inclos'd and here return you my hearty thanks for the Face the Shape the Meen which you have so generously bestow'd upon me From looking upon your Verses I went to my Glass But Jesu The difference Thô I bought it to Flatter me yet Compar'd to you I found it a Plain-Dealer It show'd me immediately that I have been a great deal more beholding to you than I have been to Nature For she only form'd me not Frightful but you have made me Divine But as you have been a great dealkinder than Nature has been to me I think my self obliged in Requital to be a good deal more Liberal than Heav'n has been to you and to allow you as large a Stock of Wit as you have giv'n me of Beauty Since so Honest a Gentleman as your self has Stretcht his Conscience to commend my Person I am bound in Gratitude to do Violence to my Reason to Extol your Verses When I left the Town I desir'd you to furnish me with the News of the Place and the first thing I have receiv'd from you is a Copy of Verses on my Beauty By which you Dext●rously infer that the most extraordinary piece of News you can send me is to tell me that I am Hansome By which ingenious Inference you had Infallibly brought the Scandal of a Wit upon you if your Verses had not stood up in your Justification But tell me truly Cousin could you think that I should prove so easy a Creature as to believe all that you have said of me How could you find in your heart to make such a Fool of me and such a Cheat of your self To Intoxicate me with Flattery and draw me in to Truck my little Stock of Wit and Judgment for a meer Imagination of Beauty when the Real thing too falls so infinitely short of what you would make me exchange for the very Fancy of it For Cousin there is this considerable Difference between the Merit of Wit and Beauty that Men are never Violently Influenc'd by Beauty unless it has weaken'd their Reason And never feel half the force of Wit unless their Judgments are Sound The principal time in which those of your Sex admire Beauty in ours is between Seventeen and Thirty that is after they are past their Innocence and before they are come to their Judgments And now Cousin have not you been Commending a pretty Quality in me to Admire which as I have just shewn you supposes not only a Corrupted Will but a raw Understanding Besides how Frail how Transitory is it Nature deprives us of it at Thirty if Diseases spare it till then By which constant proceeding she seems to Imply that she gives it us as a Gugaw to please us in the Childhood of our Reasons and takes it from us as a thing below us when we come to years of Discretion Thus Cousin have you been commending a Quality in me which has nothing of true Merit in it and of which I have no greater a share than to keep me from being scandalous So that all I could have got by your kindness if I had parted with my Judgment in order to reap