After the Dean had vifited many Parts of Italy, at laft going on the Island Inarine, he fends Mr. Pope the following Letter from Naples, dated October 22, 1717, N. 8.

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HAVE long had it in my Thoughts to trouble you with a Letter, but was difcourag'd for Want of fomething worth fending fifteen hundred Miles. Italy is fuch an exhaufted Subject, that I dare fay, you'd easily forgive my saying nothing of it; and the Imagination of a Poet, is a Thing fo nice and delicate, that it is no eafy Matter to find out Images capable of giving Pleasure to one of the few, who (in any Age) have come up to that Character. I am nevertheless lately return'd from an Island, where I pass'd three or four Months, which, were it fet out in its true Colours, might methinks amufe you agreeably enough for a Minute or two. The Ifland Inarine is an Epitome of the whole Earth, containing, within the Compafs of eighteen Miles, a wonderful Variety of Hills, Vales, ragged Rocks, fruitful Plains, and barren Mountains, all thrown together in a most romantick Confufion. The Air is in the hottest Seafon conftantly refrefhed by cool Breezes from the Sea. The Vales produce excellent Wheat and Indian Corn, but are mostly covered with Vineyards, intermixt with Fruit-Trees. Befides the common Kinds, as Cherries, Apricots, Peaches, r. they produce Oranges, Limes, Almonds, Pomegranates, Figs, Water-Melons, and many other Fruits unknown to our Climates, which lie open to the Paffenger. The Hills are the greater Part covered to the Top with Vines, fome with Chefnut Groves, and others with Thickets of Myrtle and Lentifcus. The Fields in the Northern Side are divided by Hedgerows of Myrtle. Several Fountains and Rivulets

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add to the Beauty of this Landscape, which is fet off by the Variety of fome barren Spots and naked Rocks. But that which crowns the Scene, is a large Mountain, rifing out of the Middle of the Island (once a terrible Volcano, by the Antients called Man Epomeus) it's lower Parts are adorn'd with Vines, and other Fruits, the Middle affords Pafture to Flocks of Goats and Sheep, and the Top is a fandy pointed Rock, from which you have the finest Profpect in the World, furveying at one View, befides feveral pleafant Ilands lying at your Feet, a Tract of Italy a bout three hundred Miles in length, from the Promontory of Antium, to the Cape of Palinurus. The greater Part of which hath been fung by Homer and Virgil, as making a confiderable Part of the Travels and Adventures of their two Heroes. The lands Caprea, Prochyta, and Parthenope, together with Gajeta, Cuma, Monte Mifeno, the Habitations of Circe, the Syrens, and the Leftrygones, the Bay of Naples, the Promontory of Minerva, and the whole Campagnia Felice, make but a Part of this noble Landscape; which would demand an Imagination as warm, and Numbers as flowing as your own, to defcribe it. The Inhabitants of this delicious Ifle, as they are without Riches and Honours, fo are they without the Vices and Follies that attend them; and were they but as much Strangers to Revenge, as they are to Avarice or Ambition, they might in fact anfwer the poetical Notions of the Golden Age. But they have got, as an Allay to their Happiness, an ill Habit of murdering one another on flight Offences. We had an Inftance of this the fecond Night after our Arrival ; a Youth of eighteen being thot dead by our Door: And yet by the fole Secret of minding our own Bufinefs, we found a Means of living fecurely among thefe dangerous People. Would you

know how we pass the Time at Naples? Our chief Entertainment is the Devotion of our Neighbours. Befides the Gaiety of their Churches (where Folks go to fee what they call una bella devotione (i, e. a Sort of religious Opera) they make Fireworks almost every Week, out of Devotion; the Streets are often hung with Arras, out of Devotion; and (what is fill more ftrange) the Ladies invite Gentlemen to their Houfes, and treat them with Mufick and Sweetmeats, out of Devotion; in a Word, were it not for this Devotion of it's Inhabitants, Naples would have little elfe to recommend it, befide the Air and Situation. Learning is in no very thriving State here, as indeed no where elfe in Italy. However, among many Pretenders, fome Men of Tafte are to be met with. A Friend of mine told me not long fince, that being to vifit Salvini at Florence, he found him reading your Homer. He lik'd the Notes extremely, and could find no other Fault with the Ver fion, but that he thought it approached too near a Paraphrafe; which fhews him not to be fufficiently acquainted with our Language. I with you Health to go on with that noble Work, and when you have, I need not with you Succefs. You will do me the Juftice to believe, that whatever relates to your Welfare is fincerely wifhed, by

Yours, &c.

This Letter awaked a new Defire in Mr. Pope of feeing the Kingdoms, Principalities, Commonwealths, and Islands of Italy, and the following Spring was named for the Expedition ; but it ended like his Defign of going the Year before to Mr. Jervas to Ireland, for he was vifited with Sickness, and was not in a Condition to pafs Seas and Mountains, when he had in a Manner fix'd a Refolution to go, and

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fays to Mr. Jervas Poor Poetry ! the little that's left of it here longs to cross the Seas, and leave Eufss den in full and peaceable Poffeffion of the British $$ Laurel."

Before the next Spring, inftead of going to Italy, he went to fettle at Twickenham, and fo bufy and particular he was in every Thing, that he said himself, the Hiftory of his Tranfplantation and Settlement, would require a Volume, if he was to enumerate the many Projects, Difficulties, and various Fates attending that Part of his Life, shere he paft an entire Year of his Life without any fix'd Abode in London, or more than paffing a Day or two in a Month at moft in Town, fo that he was chiefly in his Closet, and if he prepared nothing there for publick View, this Year makes almost a Blank, in his Life.

Methinks the Moralifts and Philofophers have generally run too much into Extremes in commending intirely either Solitude, or publick Life. In the former, Men for the most Part grow useless by too much Reft, and in the latter are deftroyed by too much Precipitation as Waters lying ftill, putrify and are good for nothing, and running violently on do but the more Mischief in their Paffage to others, and are fwallowed up and loft the fooner themfelves. Thofe indeed who can be useful to all States, fhould be like gentle Streams, that not only glide thro' lonely Valleys and Forefts amidst the Flocks and the Shepherds, but vifit populous Towns in their Courfe, and are at once of Ornament and Service to them. But there

are another Sort of People who feem defign'd for Solitude, fuch I mean, as have more to hide than to fhow: As for my own Part, I am of thofe of whom Seneca fays, Tam umbratiles funt, ut putent in turbido effe quicquid in luce eft. Some Men, like fome Pictures, are fitter for a Corner than a full Light; and

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I believe fuch have a natural Bent to Solitude (to car ry on the former Similitude) are like Waters which may be forced into Fountains, and exalted into a great Height, may make a noble Figure and a louder Noife, but after all they would run more smoothly, quietly and plentifully, in their own natural Course upon the Ground. The Confideration of this would make me very well contented with the Poffeffion only of that Quiet which Cowley calls the Companion of Obfcurity.

Good God! What an incongrous Animal is Man? How unfettled is his best Part, his Soul; and how changing and variable in his Frame of Body? The Conftancy of the one fhook by every Notion, the Temperament of the other affected by every Blast of Wind! What is Man altogether, but one mighty Inconfiftency ! Sicknefs and Pain is the Lot of one half of us; Doubt and Fear the Portion of the other! What a Buftle we make about paffing our Time, when all our Space is but a Point? What Aims and Ambitions are crouded into this little Inftant of our Life, which (as Shakespear finely words it) is Rounded with a Sleep?

Thele Exclamations and Queries are Mr. Pope's, and whoever thinks in this Train, muft fee the whole World and all its contemptible Grandeurs lessen be fore him at every Thought. 'Tis enough to make one remain in a Poize of Inaction void of all Defires, of all Defigns and Atchievements whatever.

But we muft return (thro' our very narrow Condition of Being) to our narrow felves, and dathofe Things that affect ourfelves: Our Paffions, our Interefts flow in upon us, and unphilofophize us into mere Mortals...

But these Reflections fuit but ill for the Times a bout which we are writing: For foon after this the

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