Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/109

Rh you his advice, which is, to come to England and see your friends. This, he affirms (abstracted from the desire he has to see you) to be very good for your health. He thinks, that your going to Spa, and drinking the waters there, would be of great service to you, if you have resolution enough to take the journey. But he would have you try England first. I like the prescription very much, but I own, I have a self interest in it; for your taking this journey would certainly do me a great deal of good. Pope has just now embarked himself in another great undertaking as an author; for, of late, he has talked only as a gardener. He has engaged to translate the Odyssey in three years, I believe rather out of a prospect of gain than inclination; for I am persuaded he bore his part in the loss of the South-sea. He lives mostly at Twickenham, and amuses himself in his house and garden. I supped about a fortnight ago with lord Bathurst and Lewis, at Dr. Arbuthnot's. Whenever your old acquaintance meet, they never fail of expressing their want of you. I wish you would come, and be convinced, that all I tell you is true.

As for the reigning amusement of the town, it is entirely musick; real fiddles, base-viols, and hautboys; not poetical harps, lyres, and reeds. There's nobody allowed to say, I sing, but an eunuch, or an Italian woman. Every body is grown now as great a judge of musick, as they were, in your time, of poetry; and folks, that could not distinguish one tune from another, now daily dispute about the different styles of Handel, Bononcini, and Attilio. People have now forgot Homer, and Virgil, and Cæsar; or, at least, they have lost their ranks. For. XII.