fibly not much mend our manners, yet posterity will enjoy the benefit, whenever a Court happens to have the leaft relish for Virtue and Religion. LETTER LXXXIV. To Dr. SwIFT. Decemb. 30, 1736. Y more melancholy, than almost any thing OUR very kind letter has made me in this world now can do. For I can bear every thing in it, bad as it is, better than the complaints of my friends. Tho' others tell me you are in pretty good health and in good spirits, I find the contrary when you open your mind to me: And indeed it is but a prudent part, to feem not fo concern'd about others, nor fo crazy ourselves as we really are: for we shall neither be beloved nor esteem'd the more, by our common acquaintance, for any afflicton or any infirmity. But to our true friend we may, we must complain, of what ('tis a thousand to one) he complains with us; for if we have known him long, he is old, and if he has known the world long, he is out of humour at it. If you have but as much more health than others at your age, as you have more wit and good temper temper, you shall not have much of my Pity: But if you ever live to have lefs, you fhall not have lefs of my Affection. A whole people will rejoice at every year that shall be added to you, of which you have had a late inftance in the public rejoicings on your birth-day. I can affure you, fomething better and greater than high birth and quality must go toward acquiring thofe demonftrations of public esteem and love. I have feen a royal birth-day uncelebrated, but by one vile Ode, and one hired bonfire. Whatever years may take away from you, they will not take away the general esteem, for your Senfe, Virtue, and Charity. The most melancholy effect of years is that you mention, the catalogue of those we lov'd and have loft, perpetually encreafing. How much that Reflection ftruck me, you'll fee from the Motto I have prefix'd to my Book of Letters which so much against my inclination has been drawn from me. It is from Catullus : Quo defiderio veteres revocamus Amores, I detain this letter till I can find fome fafe conveyance; innocent as it is, and as all letters of mine must be, of any thing to offend my fuperiors, except the reverence I bear to true merit and virtue. "But I have much reafon to fear, "those U 3 294 . FROM DR. SWIFT, &c. "those which you have too partially kept in << your hands will get out in fome very difa greeable shape, in cafe of our mortality and "the more reason to fear it, fince this last "month Curl has obtain'd from Ireland two "letters (one of Lord Bolingbroke and one of "mine, to you, which we wrote in the year 1723) and he has printed them, to the best ." of my memory, rightly, except one paffage concerning Dawley, which must have been fince inferted, fince my Lord had not that "place at that time. Your anfwer to that let"ter he has not got; it has never been out of my cuftody; for whatever is lent is loft (Wit "as well as Money) to these needy poetical "readers." The world will certainly be the better for his change of life. He feems in the whole turn of his letters to be a fettled and principled Philofopher, thanking Fortune for the Tranquillity he has been led into by her averfion, like a man driven by a violent wind, from the sea into a calm harbour. You afk me if I have got any supply of new Friends to make up for those that are gone? I think that impoffible, for not our friends only, but fo much of ourselves is gone by the mere flux and courfe of years, that, were the fame friends to be restored to us, we could not be restored to ourselves, to enjoy them. But as when the continual washing of a river takes away our flowers and plants, it throws weeds and fedges in their room a; fo the course of time brings us fomething, as it deprives us of a great deal; and instead of leaving us what we cultivated, and expected to flourish and adorn us, gives us only what is of fome little use, by accident. Thus I have acquired, without my feeking, a few chance-acquaintance, of young' men, who look rather to the past age than the prefent, and therefore the future may have fome hopes of them. If I love them, it is because they honour fome of those whom I, and the world, have loft, or are lofing. Two or three of them have distinguish'd themselves in Parliament, and you will own in a very uncommon manner, when I tell you it is by their afferting of Independency, and Contempt of Corruption. One or two are link'd to me by their love of the fame ftudies and the fame authors: but I will own to you, my moral capacity has got so much the better of my poetical, that I have few acquaintance on the latter score, and none without a cafting weight on the former. a There are some ftrokes | affected by the complaints of in this letter, which can be a peevish old man (labouraccounted for no otherwise ing and impatient under his than by the Author's ex- infirmities;) and too intent treme compaffion and ten- in the friendly office of molderness of heart, too much lifying them. But I find my heart harden'd and blunt to new impreffions, it will scarce receive or retain affections of yesterday; and thofe friends who have been dead these twenty years, are more prefent to me now, than those I fee daily. You, dear Sir, are one of the former fort to me in all respects, but that we can, yet, correspond together. I don't know whether 'tis not more vexatious, to know we are both in one world, without any further intercourfe. Adieu. I can fay no more, I feel fo much: Let me drop into common things-Lord Masham has just married his fon. Mr. Lewis has juft buried his wife. Lord Oxford wept over your letter in pure kindness. Mrs. B. fighs more for you, than for the lofs of youth. She says, she will be agreeable many years hence, for fhe has learn'd that fecret from fome receipts of your writing.—Adieu. TH LETTER LXXXV. March 23, 1736-7. HO' you were never to write to me, yet what you defired in your last, that I would write often to you, would be a very easy tafk; for every day I talk with you, and of you, in my heart; and I need only fet down what that is thinking of. The nearer I find myself verging |