about him I find to my great fcandal repeated in one of yours to Whatever you might hint to me, was this for the profane? the thing, if true, should be concealed; but it is, I affure you, abfolutely untrue, in every circumstance. He has fixed in a very agreeable retirement near Fontainbleau, and makes it his whole business vacare literis. But tell me the truth, were you not angry at his omitting to write to you fo long? I may, for I hear from him feldomer than from you, that is twice or thrice a year at most. Can you poffibly think he can neglect you, or difregard you? If you catch yourself at thinking fuch nonfenfe, your parts are decay'd: For, believe me, great Genius's muft and do esteem one another, and I queftion if any others can efteem or comprehend uncommon merit. Others only guefs at that merit, or fee glimmerings of their minds: A genius has the intuitive faculty: Therefore, imagine what you will, you cannot be fo fure of any man's esteem as of his. If I can think that neither he nor you despise me, it is a greater honour to me by far, and will be thought so by posterity, than if all the House of Lords writ Commendatory Verses upon me, the Commons order'd me to print my Works, the Universities gave me public thanks, and the King, Queen, and Prince crown'd me with Laurel. You are a very ig

norant

norant man; you don't know the figure his name and yours will make hereafter: I do, and will preserve all the memorials I can, that I was of your intimacy; longo, fed proximus, intervallo. I will not quarrel with the present Age; it has done enough for me, in making and keeping you two my friends. Do not you be too angry at it, and let not him be too angry at it; it has done and can do neither of you any manner of harm, as long as it has not, and cannot burn your works: while those fubfift, you'll both appear the greatest men of the time, in fpite of Princes and Ministers; and the wifeft, in spite of all the little Errors you may please to commit.

Adieu. May better health attend you, than, I fear, you poffefs; may but as good health attend you always as mine is at prefent; tolerable, when an easy mind is join'd with it.

LE T

LETTER LXXXIII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Decemb. 2, 1736.

I

Think you owe me a letter, but whether you do or not, I have not been in a condition to write. Years and Infirmities have quite broke me; I mean that odious continual disorder in my head. I neither read, nor write, nor remember, nor converfe. All I have left is to walk and ride; the first I can do tolerably; but the latter, for want of good weather at this season, is feldom in my power; and having not an ounce of flesh about me, my fkin comes off in ten miles riding, because my skin and bone cannot agree together. But I am angry, because you will not fuppose me as fick as I am, and write to me out of perfect charity, although I should not be able to answer. I have too many vexations by my station and the impertinence of people, to be able to bear the mortification of not hearing from a very few diftant friends that are left; and, confidering how time and fortune have ordered matters, I have hardly one friend left but yourself. What Horace fays, Singula de nobis anni prædantur, I feel every month, at fartheft; and by VOL. IX.

U

this

this computation, if I hold out two years, I fhall think it a miracle. My comfort is, you begun to distinguish fo confounded early, that your acquaintance with distinguish'd men of all kinds was almost as antient as mine. I mean Wycherley, Row, Prior, Congreve, Addison, Parnel, &c. and in fpite of your heart, you have owned me a Cotemporary. Not to mention Lords Oxford, Bolingbroke, Harcourt, Peterborow: In fhort, I was t'other day recollecting twenty-feven great Ministers, or Men of Wit and Learning, who are all dead, and all of my acquaintance, within twenty years past ; neither have I the grace to be forry, that the present times are drawn to the dregs as well as my own life. May my friends be happy in this and a better life, but I value not what becomes of Pofterity when I confider from what Monsters they are to fpring.-My Lord Orrery writes to you to-morrow, and you fee I send this under his cover, or at leaft franked by him. He has 3000l. a year about Cork, and the neighbourhood, and has more than three years rent unpaid: This is our condition, in thefe bleffed times. I writ to your neighbour about a month ago, and fubfcribed my name: I fear he hath not received my letter, and wish you would ask him: but perhaps he is ftill a rambling; for we hear of him at Newmarket,

and

and that Boerhaave hath restored his health.How my fervices are leffened of late with the number of my friends on your fide! yet, my Lord Bathurst and Lord Masham and Mr. Lewis remain, and being your acquaintance I defire when you fee them to deliver my compliments; but chiefly to Mrs. P. B. and let me know whether the be as young and agreeable as when I faw her laft? Have you got a fupply of new friends to make up for those who are gone? and are they equal to the first? I am afraid it is with friends as with times; and that the laudator temporis acti fe puero, is equally applicable to both. I am lefs grieved for living here, because it is a perfect retirement, and confequently fitteft for those who are grown good for nothing for this town and kingdom are as much out of the world as North-Wales - My head is fo ill that I cannot write a paper full as I used to do; and yet I will not forgive a blank of half an inch from you. I had reason to expect from fome of your letters, that we were to hope for more Epiftles of Morality; and, I affure you, my acquaintance refent that they have not feen my name at the head of one. The fubjects of fuch Epiftles are more useful to the public, by your manner of handling them, any of all your writings; and although, in fo profligate a world as ours, they may posU 2

than

fibly