LET.  XXX.

TO MR POPE.

Adrianople, April 1.  O. S. 1717.

I DARE say you expect, at least, something very new in this letter, after I have gone a journey, not undertaken by any Christian for some hundred years.  The most remarkable accident that happened to me, was my being very near overturned into the Hebrus; and, if I had much regard for the glories that one’s name enjoys after death, I should certainly be sorry for having missed the romantic conclusion of swimming down the same river in which the musical head of Orpheus repeated verses so many ages since: 

          “Caput a cervice revulsum,

“Gurgite cum medio, portans Oeagrius Hebrus,
“Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua,
“Ah! miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat,
“Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae”

Who knows but some of your bright wits might have found it a subject affording many poetical turns, and have told the world, in an heroic elegy, that,

As equal were our souls, so equal were our fates?

I despair of ever hearing so many fine things said of me, as so extraordinary a death would have given occasion for.

I AM at this present moment writing in a house situated on the banks of the Hebrus, which runs under my chamber window.  My garden is full of all cypress trees, upon the branches of which several couple of true turtles are saying soft things to one another from morning till night.  How naturally do boughs and vows come into my mind, at this minute? and must not you confess, to my praise, that ’tis more than an ordinary discretion that can resist the wicked suggestions of poetry, in a place where truth, for once, furnishes all the ideas of pastoral.  The summer is already far advanced in this part of the world; and, for some miles round Adrianople, the whole ground is laid out in gardens, and the banks of the rivers are set with rows of fruit-trees, under which all the most considerable Turks divert themselves every evening, not with walking, that is not one of their pleasures; but a set party of them chuse out a green spot, where the shade is very thick, and, there they spread a carpet, on which they sit drinking their coffee, and are generally attended by some slave with a fine voice, or that plays on some instrument.  Every twenty paces you may see one of these little companies listening to the dashing of the river; and this taste is so universal, that the very gardeners are not without it.  I have often seen them and their children sitting on the banks of the river, and playing on a rural instrument, perfectly answering the description of the ancient fistula, being composed of unequal reeds, with a simple, but agreeable softness in the sound.