y and listen to Swift and Pope.

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him, Try to
frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most
wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is
that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow
spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story
more gallant and cheering, than the love and friendship which this company
of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of
men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares
quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of
men great and famous? and for liking them for the qualities which made
them so? A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written the
_Patriot King_, and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the
decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and
greatest of men: a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won
Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,(125)
which are as witty as Congreve: a mere Irish 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. His 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, with the exception
of Congreve, were what we should now call men's men. They spent many hours
of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs and
coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by
word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of
one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful _habitues_ sat round;
strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his head quarter