Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/74

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
26
LIFE OF PARNELL.

place at court, therefore, that I may not entirely be without one every where, show that I have a place in your remembrance.

Your most affectionate faithful servants,

Homer will be published in three weeks.

DR. PARNELL TO MR. POPE.

I am writing to you a long letter, but all the tediousness I feel in it is, that it makes me during the time think more intently of my being far from you. I fancy, if I were with you, I could remove some of the uneasiness which you may have felt from the opposition of the world; and which you should be ashamed to feel, since it is but the testimony which one part of it gives you, that your merit is unquestionable. What would you have otherwise, from ignorance, envy, or those tempers which vie with you in your own way? I know this in mankind, that when our ambition is unable to attain its end, it is not only wearied, but exasperated too at the vanity of its labours; then we speak ill of happier studies, and sighing, condemn the excellence which we find above our reach.

My Zoilus, which you used to write about, I finished last spring, and left in town. I waited till I came up to send it you, but not arriving here