vindicated him, in the beginning of your ministry, from my accufations. But I granted he had the greatest inequalities of any man alive, and his whole scene was fifty times more a What-d'ye-call-it, than yours: for, I declare yours was unie, and I wish you would fo order it, that the world may be as wife as I upon that article: Mr. Pope wishes it too, and I believe there is not a more honeft man in England, even without wit. But you regard us not.

I was b forty feven years old when I began to think of death, and the reflections upon it now begin when I wake in the morning, and end when I am going to fleep.-I writ to Mr. Pope and not to you. My birth, although from a family not undistinguished in its name, is many degrees inferior to your's; all my pretenfions from perfon and parts infinitely fo; I a younger fon of younger fons; you born to a great fortune yet I fee you with all your advantages, funk to a degree that you could never have been without them: But yet I fee you as much esteemed, as much beloved, as much dreaded, and perhaps more (though it be almost impoffible) than ever you were in your highest exaltation-only I grieve like an Alderman that you are not fo rich. And yet, my Lord, I pretend to value money as little as you, and I will The Year of Queen Anne's Death.

Could

call five hundred witneffes (if you will take Irish witneffes) to prove it. I renounce your whole philofophy, because it is not your practice. By the figure of living, (if I used that expreffion to Mr. Pope) I do not mean the parade, but a fuitablenefs to your mind and as for the pleasure of giving, I know your foul fuffers when you are debarr'd of it. you, when your own generofity and contempt of outward things (be not offended, it is no Ecclefiaftical, but an Epictetian phrase) could you, when these have brought you to it, come over and live with Mr. Pope and me at the Deanry? I could almost wish the experiment was tried-No, God forbid, that ever fuch a fcoundrel as Want fhould dare to approach you. But, in the mean time, do not brag; Retrenchments are not your talent. But, as old Weymouth faid to me in his Lordly Latin, Philofopha verba, ignava opera; I wish you could learn Arithmetic, that three and two make five, and will never make more. My philofophical fpectacles which you advise me to, will tell me that I can live on 50 l. a year (wine excluded, which my bad health forces me to) but I cannot endure that Otium fhould be fine dignitate, -My Lord, what I would have faid of Fame is meant of fame which a man enjoys in his life; because I cannot be a great Lord, I would acquire

acquire what is a kind of subsidium, I would endeavour that my betters should seek me by the merit of fomething diftinguishable, instead of my feeking them. The defire of enjoying it in aftertimes is owing to the spirit and folly of youth but with age we learn to know the houfe is fo full, that there is no room for above one or two at most in an age, through the whole world. My Lord, I hate and love to write to you, it gives me pleasure, and kills me with melancholy. The D-- take ftupidity, that it will not come to fupply the want of philofophy.

You

LETTER XLII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Oct. 31, 1729.

OU were fo careful of fending me the Dunciad, that I have received five of them, and have pleased four friends. I am one of every body who approve every part of it, Text and Comment; but am one abstracted from every body, in the happiness of being recorded your friend, while wit, and humour, and politenefs fhall have any memorial among As for your octavo edition, we know noL 3

us.

thing

thing of it, for we have an octavo of our own, which hath fold wonderfully, confidering our poverty, and dulnefs the confequence of it.

I writ this poft to Lord B. and tell him in my letter, that, with a great deal of loss for a frolick, I will fly as foon as build; I have neither years, nor fpirits, nor money, nor patience for fuch amusements. The frolick is gone off, and I am only 100%. the poorer. But this kingdom is grown fo exceffively poor, that we wife men must think of nothing but getting a little ready money. It is thought there are not two hundred thousand pounds of fpecie in the whole ifland; for we return thrice as much to our Abfentees, as we get by trade, and fo are all inevitably undone; which I have been telling them in print these ten years, to as little purpose as if it came from the pulpit. And this is enough for Irish politics, which I only mention, because it so nearly touches myself. I must repeat what, I believe, I have faid before, that I pity you much more than Mrs. Fope. Such a parent and friend hourly declining before your eyes is an object very unfit for your health, and duty, and tender difpofition; and I pray God it may not affect you too much. I am as much fatisfied that your additional col. per Annum is for your life as if it were for ever. You have enough to leave your friends, I would not have

them

them glad to be rid of you; and I shall take care that none but my enemies will be glad to get rid of me. You have embroiled me with Lord B— about the figure of living, and the pleasure of giving. I am under the neceffity of fome little paultry figure in the station I am: but I make it as little as poffible. As to the other part you are base, because I thought myself as great a giver as ever was of my ability; and yet in proportion you exceed, and have kept it till now a fecret even from me, when I wondered how you were able to live with your whole little revenue.

Adieu.

LETTER XLIII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT.

I

you

Nov. 19, 1729.

Find that have laid aside your project of building in Ireland, and that we shall see you in this island cum zephyris, et hirundine prima. I know not whether the love of fame increases as we advance in age; fure I am that the force of friendship does. I lov'd you almost twenty years ago, I thought of you as well as I do now, better was beyond the power of conception, or, to avoid an equivoque, beyond the extent of ideas. Whether my Whether you