But alas! would his high Heart be contented, in his having the Choice of his Acquaintance so limited? How many for their Friends, others for themselves, and some too in the Dread of being the future Objects of his Spleen, would he feel had undesired the Knowledge or the Sight of him! But what’s all this to you, Mr. Pope? For, as Shakespear says, Let the gall’d Horse wince, our Withers are unwrung! But however, if it be not too late, it can do you no harm to look about you: For if this is not as yet your Condition, I remember many Years ago, to have seen you, though in a less Degree, in a Scrape, that then did not look, as if you would be long out of another. When you used to pass your Hours at Button’s, you were even there remarkable for your satyrical Itch of Provocation; scarce was there a Gentleman of any Pretension to Wit, whom your unguarded Temper had not fallen upon, in some biting Epigram; among which you once caught a Pastoral Tartar, whose Resentment, that your Punishment might be proportion’d to the Smart of your Poetry, had stuck up a Birchen Rod in the Room, to be ready, whenever you might come within reach of it; and at this rate you writ and rallied, and writ on, till you rhym’d yourself quite out of the Coffee-house. But if Solitude pleases you, who shall say you are not in the right to enjoy it? Perhaps too, by this time you may be upon a par with Mankind, and care as little for their Company as they do for Yours: Though I rather hope you have chosen to be so shut up, in order to make yourself a better Man. If you succeed in that, you will indeed be, what no body else, in haste will be, A better Poet, than you Are. And so, Sir, I am, just as much as you believe me to be,
Your Humble Servant,
Colley Cibber.
July the 7th
1742.
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK
MEMORIAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
The Augustan Reprint Society
PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT