cide the great queftion of an indelible character in favour of the principles in fashion; this I hope you will reprefent to the Ministry in my favour, as a point of merit; fo farewell till I

return.

I am come back, and have deprived the parfon, who by a law here is to be hanged the next couple he marries: he declared to us that he refolved to be hanged, only defired that when he was to go to the gallows the Archbishop would take off his Excommunication. Is not he a good Catholic? and yet he is but a Scotch-man. This is the only Irish event I ever troubled you with, and I think it deferves notice---Let me add, that, if I were Gulliver's friend, I would defire all my acquaintance to give out that his copy was bafely mangled, and abused, and added to, and blotted out by the Printer; for fo to me it feems, in the fecond volume particularly.

Adiey.

LET

I

LETTER XXI.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Decemb. 5, 1726.

Believe the hurt in your hand affects me more than it does yourself, and with reason, because I may probably be a greater lofer by it. What have Accidents to do with those who are neither jockeys, nor fox-hunters, nor bullies, nor drunkards? And yet a rafcally Groom shall gallop a foundred horse ten miles upon a causeway, and get home fafe.

I am very much pleas'd that you approve what was fent, because I remember to have heard a great man fay, that nothing required more judgment than making a prefent; which when it is done to those of high rank, ought to be of fomething that is not readily got for money. You oblige me, and at the fame time do me justice in what you observe as to Mr. P. Befides, it is too late in life for me to act otherwife, and therefore I follow a very easy road to virtue, and purchase it cheap. If you will give me leave to join us, is not your life and mine a state of power, and dependence a state of flavery? We care not three pence whether a Prince or Minister will fee us or no: We are not

afraid of having ill offices done us, nor are at G 3

the

the trouble of guarding our words for fear of giving offence. I do agree that Riches are Liberty, but then we are to put into the balance how long our apprenticeship is to last in acquiring them.

Since you have receiv'd the verses, I moft earnestly intreat you to burn those which you do not approve, and in thofe few where you may not diflike fome parts, blot out the reft, and sometimes (tho' it be against the laziness of your nature) be fo kind to make a few corrections, if the matter will bear them. I have fome few of those things I call Thoughts moral and diverting; if you please, I will fend the best I can pick from them, to add to the new volume. I have reason to chuse the method you mention of mixing the several verses, and I hope thereby among the bad Critics to be entitled to more merit than is my due.

This moment I am so happy to have a letter from my Lord Peterborow, for which I intreat you will present him with my humble respects and thanks, tho' he all-to-be Gullivers me by very strong infinuations. Though you despise Riddles, I am strongly tempted to fend a parcel to be printed by themselves, and make a ninepenny jobb for the bookfeller. There are fome of my own, wherein I exceed mankind, Mira Poemata! the most folemn that were ever seen;

and

and fome writ by others, admirable indeed, but far inferior to mine; but I will not praise myself. You approve that writer who laughs and makes others laugh; but why should I who hate the world, or you who do not love it, make it fo happy? therefore I refolve from henceforth to handle only serious fubjects, nifi quid tu, doƐte Trebati, Diffentis. Yours, &c.

MR

LETTER XXII.

March 8, 1726-7.

R. Stopford will be the bearer of this letter, for whofe acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you: and I think the acquaintance of so valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the leaft obligations.

Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleas'd with this joint-volume, in which, methinks we look like friends, fide by fide, ferious and merry by turns, converfing interchangeably and walking down hand in hand to posterity; not in the stiff forms of learned Authors, flattering each other, and fetting the rest of mankind at nought: but in a free, unimportant, natural, eafy manner; diverting others just as we diverted ourselves. The third volume confifts of Verfes, but I would chufe to print

G 4

print none but fuch as have fome peculiarity, and may be distinguish'd for ours, from other writers. There's no end of making Books, Solomon faid, and above all of making Miscellanies, which all men can make. For unless there be a character in every piece, like the mark of the Elect, I fhould not care to be one. of the Twelve-thousand figned.

You receiv'd, I hope, fome commendatory verfes from a Horfe and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic Epiftle of Mrs. Gulliver.. The Bookfeller would fain have printed them before the fecond Edition of the Book, but I would not permit it without your approbation : nor do I much like them. You fee how much like a poet I write, and yet if you were with us, you'd be deep in Politics. People are very warm, and very angry, very little to the purpofe, but therefore the more warm and the more angry: Non noftrum eft, Tantas componere lites. I ftay at Twit'nam, without fo much as reading news-papers, votes, or any other paltry Pamphlets: Mr. Stopford will carry you a whole parcel of them, which are fent for your diverfion, but not imitation. For my own part, methinks I am at Glubdubdrib with none but ancients and fpirits about me.

. I am rather better than I ufe to be at this feafon, but my hand (tho', as you fee, it has not

loft