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Dublin. In the mean time his a Dulness grows and flourishes as if he was there already. It will indeed be a noble work: the many will ftare at it, the few will fmile, and all his Patrons from Bickerstaff to Gulliver will rejoice, to fee themselves adorned in that immortal piece.

I hear that have had some return of your you illness which carried you fo fuddenly from us (if indeed it was your own illness which made you in fuch hafte to be at Dublin.) Dear Swift, take care of your health, I'll give you a receipt for it, à la Montagne, or which is better à la Bruyere. Nouriffer bien vôtre corps; ne le fatiguer jamais: laiffer rouiller l'efprit, meuble inutil, voire outil dangereux: Laiffer fonner vos clockes le matin pour eveiller les chanoines, et pour faire dormir le Doyen d'un fommeil doux et profond, qui luy procure de beaux fonges: Lever vous tard, et aller à l'Eglife, pour vous faire payer d'avoir bien dormi et bien dejeuné. As to myfelf (a person about whom I concern myself very little) I must say a word or two out of complaifance to you. I am in my farm, and here I fhoot ftrong and tenacious roots: I have caught hold of the earth (to use a Gardener's phrafe) and neither my enemies nor my friends will find it an eafy matter to transplant me again,

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you:

I love

you

Adieu. Let me hear from you, at least of for a thousand things, for none more than for the just esteem and love you have for all the fons of Adam.

P. S. According to Lord Bolingbroke's account I fhall be at Dublin in three days. I cannot help adding a word, to defire you to expect my foul there with you by that time; but as for the jade of a body that is tack'd to it, I fear there will be no dragging it after. I affure I have few friends here to detain me, you and no powerful one at Court abfolutely to forbid my journey. I am told the Gynocrafy are of opinion, that they want no better writers than Cibber and the British journalist; so that we may live at quiet, and apply ourselves to our more abftrufe ftudies. The only Courtiers I know, or have the honour to call my friends, are John Gay and Mr. Bowry; the former is at present so employed in the elevated airs of his Opera, and the latter in the exaltation of his high dignity (that of her Majesty's Waterman) that I can scarce obtain a categorical answer from either to any thing I fay to 'em. But the Opera fucceeds extremely, to yours and my extreme fatisfaction, of which he promises this

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poft to give you a full account. I have been in a worfe condition of health than ever, and thin my immortality is very near out of my enjoyment: fo it must be in you, and in pofterity, to make me what amends you can for dying young. Adieu. While I am, I am yours. Pray love me, and take care of yourself.

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LETTER XXIX.

March 23, 1727-8.

Send you a very odd thing, a paper printed in Boston in New-England, wherein you'll find a real perfon, a member of their Parliament, of the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of that Traveller has travel'd thither, it has travel'd very quick to have folks chriften'd already by the name of the supposed Author. But if you object that no child fo lately chriften'd could be arrived at years of maturity to be elected into Parliament, I reply (to folve the riddle) that the person is an anabaptist, and not christen'd till full age, which fets all right. However it be, the accident is very fingular, that these two names fhould be united.

Mr.

Mr. Gay's Opera has been acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the whole season. So he has more than a fence about his thousand pound a: he'll foon be thinking of a fence about his two thousand. Shall no one of us live as we would with each other to live? Shall he have no annuity, you no fettlement on this fide, and I no profpect of getting to you on the other? This world is made for Cæfar-as Cato faid, for ambitious, false, or flattering people to domineer in Nay they would not, by their good will, leave us our very books, thoughts, or words, in quiet. I defpife the world yet, I affure you, more than either Gay or you, and the Court more than all the reft of the world. As for thofe Scriblers for whom you apprehend I would fupprefs my Dulness (which by the way, for the future, you are to call by a more pompous name, The Dunciad) how much that neft of Hornets are my

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regard, will easily appear to you, when you read the Treatife of the Bathos.

At all adventures, yours and my name shall stand linked as friends to pofterity, both in verse and profe, and (as Tully calls it) in confuetudine Studiorum. Would to God our perfons could but as well, and as furely, be infeparable! I find my other Tyes dropping from me: fome worn off, fome torn off, others relaxing daily : My greateft, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, Time is shaking every moment, and it now hangs but by a thread! I am many years the older, for living fo much with one fo old; much the more helpless, for having been so long help'd and tended by her; much the more confiderate and tender, for a daily commerce with one who required me juftly to be both to her; and confequently the more melancholy and thoughtful; and the lefs fit for others, who want only in a companion or a friend, to be amused or entertained. My constitution too has had its fhare of decay, as well as my fpirits, and I am as much in the decline at forty as you at fixty. I believe we fhould be fit to live together, could I get a little more health, which might make me not quite infupportable: your Deafness wou'd agree with my Dulness; you would not want me to speak when you

could

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