he might fear no sort of Deity, good or
bad,--since in the third verse he plainly testifies his apprehension of
a future state by being solicitous whither his soul was going. As to
what you mention of his using gay and ludicrous expressions, I have
already owned my opinion that the expressions are not so, but that
diminutives are often in Latin taken for expressions of tenderness and
concern." This comment is introduced, in the printed correspondence,
into the letter to Steele of November 29, 1712, and if it was sent to
him as well as to Caryll both must have objected to the gay and
ludicrous expressions of Hadrian, both must have spoken of the suspicion
that he was addicted to magic, both must have inferred from it that he
feared no sort of Deity, good or bad, and the language of both must have
been as identical as their ideas.

"I know," Pope wrote to Caryll, August 22, 1717, "you will take part in
rejoicing for the victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks, in the zeal
you bear to the Christian interest, though your cousin of Oxford, with
whom I dined yesterday, says there is no other difference in the
Christians beating the Turks or the Turks beating the Christians, than
whether the Emperor shall first declare war against Spain, or Spain
declare it against the Emperor." In the published version the passage
forms part of a letter to Edward Blount dated September 8, 1717, and
either we must admit that it was never written to him, or believe that
Caryll and Blount had each an Oxford cousin, that the poet dined with
the Oxford cousin of Caryll on August 21, and with the Oxford cousin of
Blount on September 7, that both these cousins made, at their respective
dinners, the same epigrammatic observation in the very same words, and
that the extraordinary coincidence struck Pope so little that he did not
even remark upon it.

Another passage of a letter to Caryll, dated September 20, [1713]
reappears in a letter to Blount dated February 10, 1716. "I am just
returned from the country, whither Mr. Rowe did me the favour to
accompany me, and to pass a week at Binfield. I need not tell you how
much a man of his turn could not but entertain me; but I must acquaint
you there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposition almost peculiar to
that gentleman, which renders it impossible to part from him without
that uneasiness and chagrin which generally succeeds all great
pleasures. I have just been taking a solitary walk by moonshine in St