and to read them with pleasure would be dangerous on the other fide, because of the infection. I will never believe, that you have any keen relifh of them, till I find you write worse than you do, which I dare fay, I never fhall. Who that Petit de la Croix is, the pretended author of them, I cannot tell: but obferving : • Not the pretended Author, but the real Translator, of an Arabic MS. in the French King's library. What he has given in ten fmall Volumes, is not more than the tenth part of the Original. The Eastern people have been always famous for this fort of Tales in which much fine morality is often conveyed; not indeed in a story always representing real life and manners, but what the eastern fuperftitions have made pafs for fuch amongst the people. Their great genius for this kind of writing appears from what the Tranflator has here given us-But the policy of fome of the latter princes of the East greatly hurt the elegance and use of the compofition, by fetting all men upon compofing in this way, to furnish matter for their coffee-houfes and public places of refort; which were enjoined to entertain their customers with a rehearsal of these works, in order to divert them from politics, and matters of state. The collection in question is so strange a medley of sense and nonsense, that one would be tempted to think it the compilation of fome coffee-man, who gathered indifferently from good and bad. The contrivance he has invented of tying them together is fo blunderingly conducted, that after fuch an inftance of the want of common fenfe one can wonder at no abfurdity we find in them. The tales are fuppofed to be told to one of the Kings of Perfia of the Dynasty of the Saffanides, an ancient race before Mahomet, and yet the scene of some of them is laid in the Court of Harown Alrafcid the 26th Chalif, and the 5th of the Race of the Abafides. Thefe, where the scene is fo laid, are amongst the beft; and it may be eafily accounted for. Alrafcid was one of the most magnificent of the Chalifs, and the greatest encourager of Letters; fo that it was natural for men of Genius in after-times, to do this honour to his memory.-But the Bishop talks of Petit de la Croix. M. Galland was the tranflator of the Arabian Tales. The name of the other is to the collection called the Perfian Tales, of which I have nothing to say. W. ferving how full they are in the descriptions of dress, furniture, etc. I cannot help thinking them the product of fome Woman's imagination: and, believe me, I would do any thing but break with you, rather than be bound to read them over with attention. I am forry that I was so true a prophet in refpect of the S. Sea; forry, I mean, as far as your lofs is concerned for in the general I ever was and still am of opinion, that had that project taken root and flourifhed, it would by degrees have overturned our conftitution. Three or four hundred millions was fuch a weight, that which foever way it had leaned, must have borne down all before it-But of the dead we must speak gently; and therefore, as Mr. Dryden fays fomewhere, Peace be to its Manes! Let me add one reflection, to make you eafy in your ill luck. Had you got all that you have loft beyond what you ventured, confider that your fuperfluous gains would have fprung from the ruin of feveral families that now want neceffaries! A thought, under which a good and good-natured man that grew rich by fuch means, could not, I perfuade myself, be perfectly eafy. Adieu, and believe me, ever Your, etc. LETTER VII. FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. γου ou are not yourself gladder you are well than I am; especially fince I can please myself with the thought that when you had loft your health elfewhere, you recovered it here. May thefe lodgings never treat you worse, nor you at any time have lefs reafon to be fond of them! I thank you for the fight of your Verses, and with the freedom of an honeft, though perhaps injudicious friend, muft tell you, that though I could like fome of them, if they were any body's elfe but yours, yet as they are yours and to be owned as fuch, I can fcarce like any of them. Not but that the four first lines are good, especially the fecond couplet; and might, if followed by four others as good, give repu tation to a writer of a less established fame: but from you I expect fomething of a more perfect kind, and which the oftener it is read, the more it will be admired. When you barely exceed other writers, you fall much beneath yourself: 'tis your misfortune now to write without a rival, and to be tempted by that means to be more careless, than you would otherwise be in your compofures. Thus f Epitaph on Mr. Harcourt. P. Thus much I could not forbear faying, though I have a motion of confequence in the Houfe of Lords to-day, and must prepare for it. I am even with you for your ill paper; for I write upon worse, having no other at hand. I wish you the continuance of your health most heartily and am ever Your, etc. I have fent Dr. Arbuthnot the Latin MS. which I could not find when you left me; and I am fo angry at the writer for his defign, and his manner of executing it, that I could hardly forbear fending him a line of Virgil along with it. The chief Reafoner of that philofophic farce is a Gallo-Ligur, as he is called-what that means in English or French, I can't fay-but all he fays, is in fo loose and flippery and trickish a way of reafoning, that I could not forbear applying the paffage of Virgil to him, Vane Ligur, fruftaque animis elate fuperbis! Το Written by Huetius, Bishop of Avranches. He was a mean reafoner; as may be seen by a vast collection of fanciful and extravagant conjectures, which he called a Demonftration; mixed up with much reading, which his friends called Learning; and delivered (by the allowance of all) in good Latin. This not being received for what he would give it, he composed a treatise of the Weakness of the Human Underftanding: a poor fyftem of scepticifm; indeed little other than an abstract of Sextus Empiricus. W. A much more ufeful undertaking was his directing and fuperintending the Dauphin edition of the Claffics. The commentary on his own life is entertaining. To be ferious, I hate to fee a book gravely written, and in all the forms of argumentation, which proves nothing, and which fays nothing; and endeavours only to put us into a way of distrusting our own faculties, and doubting whether the marks of truth and falfhood can in any cafe be diftinguished from each other. Could that bleffed point be made out, (as it is a contradiction in terms to fay it can,) we fhould then be in the most uncomfortable and wretched state in the world; and I would in that cafe be glad to exchange my Reafon, with a dog for his Instinct, to morrow. LETTER VIII. L. CHANCELLOR HARCOURT TO MR. POPE. I December 6, 1722. CANNOT but fufpect myself of being very unreafonable in begging you once more to review the inclosed. Your friendship draws this trouble on you. I may freely own to you, that my tenderness makes me exceeding hard to be fatisfied with any thing which can be faid on fuch an unhappy fubject. I caused the Latin Epitaph to be as often altered before I could approve it. When once your Epitaph is fet up, there can be no alteration of it; it will remain a perpetual monument of |