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loft its cunning) is frequently in very aukward sensations rather than pain. But to convince you it is pretty well, it has done fome mischief already, and just been strong enough to cut the other hand, while it was aiming to prune a fruit-tree.

Lady Bolingbroke has writ you a long, lively letter, which will attend this: She has very bad health, he very good. Lord Peterborow has writ twice to you; we fancy fome letters have been intercepted, or loft by accident. About ten thousand things I want to tell you: I wish you were as impatient to hear them, for if so, you would, you must come early this fpring. Adieu. Let me have a line from you. I ain vex'd at lofing Mr. Stopford as foon as I knew him but I thank God I have known him no longer. If every man one begins to value must fettle in Ireland, pray make me know no more of 'em, and I forgive you this one.

LETTER XXIII.

Oct. 2, 1727..

IT

T is a perfect trouble to me to write to you, and kind letter left for me at Mr. your Gay's affected me fo much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what to say to you; I

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only feel that I wish you well in every circumstance of life; that 'tis almost as good to be hated as to be loved, confidering the pain it is to minds of any tender turn, to find themselves fo utterly impotent to do any good, or give any ease to those who deferve moft from us. I would very fain know, as foon as you recover your complaints, or any part of them. Would to God I could ease any of them, or had been able even to have alleviated any! I found I was not, and truly it grieved me. I was forry to find you could think yourself eafier in any houfe than in mine, tho' at the fame time I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it seem'd to want that tenderness; I can't explain my meaning, perhaps you know it. But the best way of convincing you of my indulgence, will be, if I live, to vifit you in Ireland, and act there as much in my own way as you did here in yours. I will not leave your roof, if I am ill. To your bad health I fear there was added some disagreeable news from Ireland, which might occafion your fo fudden departure: For the last time I saw you, you affured me you would not leave us this whole winter, unless your health grew better, and I don't find it did fo. I never comply'd fo unwillingly in my life with any friend as with

you,

you, in staying fo intirely from you; nor could I have had the conftancy to do it, if you had not promised that before you went we shou'd meet, and you would fend to us all to come. I have given your remembrances to those you mention in yours we are quite forry for you, I mean for ourselves. I hope, as you do, that we shall meet in a more durable and more fatisfactory Atate; but the lefs fure I am of that, the more I would indulge it in this. We are to believe, we shall have fomething better than even a friend, there, but certainly here we have nothing fo good. Adieu for this time; may you find every friend you go to as pleas'd and happy, as every friend you went from is forry and troubled. Yours, &c.

I'

LETTER XXIV.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Dublin, Oct. 12, 1727.

Have been long reafoning with myself upon

the condition I am in, and in conclufion have thought it beft to return to what fortune hath made my home; I have there a large house, and fervants and conveniencies about I may be worse than I am, and I have po

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where to retire. I therefore thought it beft to return to Ireland, rather than to go to any distant place in England. Here is my maintainance, and here my convenience. If it

pleases God to restore me to my health, I shall readily make a third journey; if not, we must part as all human creatures have parted. You are the best and kindest friend in the world, and I know no-body alive or dead to whom I am fo much obliged; and if ever you made me angry, it was for your too much care about me. I have often wish'd that God Almighty would be fo eafy to the weakness of mankind as to let old friends be acquainted in another state; and if I were to write an Utopia for heaven, that would be one of my fchemes. This wildness you must allow for, because I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be fick here, without the vexation of making my friends uneafy; yet my giddinefs alone would not have done, if that unfociable comfortless deafnefs had not quite tired me. And I believe I should have returned from the Inn, if I had not feared it was only a fhort intermiffion, and the year was late, and my licence expiring. Surely befides all other faults, I fhould be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and kindness. But it hath pleafed God that you are not in a state of health, to be mortified with the care and fick

nefs

.

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nefs of a friend. Two fick friends never did well together; fuch an office is fitter for feryants and humble companions, to whom it is wholly indifferent whether we give them trouble or no. The cafe would be quite otherwise if you were with me; you could refuse to see any body, and here is a large house where we need not hear each other if we were both fick. I have a race of orderly elderly people of both fexes at command, who are of no confequence, and have gifts proper for attending us; who can bawl when I am deaf, and tread foftly when I am only giddy and would sleep.

I had another reason for my hafte hither, which was changing my Agent, the old one having terribly involved my little affairs; to which however I am grown fo indifferent, that I believe I fhall lofe two or three hundred pounds rather than plague myfelf with accompts; so that I am very well qualified to be a Lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray God continue and increase Mr. Congreve's amendment, though he does not deferve it like you, having been too lavish of that health which Nature gave him.

I hope my Whitehall-landlord is nearer to a place than when I left him; as the preacher faid, "the day of judgment was nearer than "ever it had been before."

Pray

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