Congreve: a mere Trish Dean could not have written "Gulliver;" and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. Its admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, "There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake," "Yes," Pope answered, "and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club-table, so faithful and so friendly.
We have said before that the chief wits of this time,
"You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this point, I doubt, every fairy will give a verdict against me. So sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite privileges of our church.
"I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way: you know we always make Goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity?
. . . I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as out of the way as himself.
"Your's."
