Ever preserve some spice of the Alderman, and prepare against Age, and Dulnefs, and Sickness, and Coldnefs or Death of Friends. A Whore has a refource left, that fhe can turn bawd; but an old decay'd Poet is a creature abandon'd, and at mercy, when he can find none. Get me likewife Polly's Meffotinto. Lord, how the school boys at Westminster, and University-lads adore you at this juncture! Have you made as many men laugh, as Ministers can make weep?

I will excufe Sir

the trouble of a letter:

When Ambaffadors came from Troy to condole with Tiberius upon the death of his Nephew, after two years; the Emperor anfwered, that he likewife condoled with them for the untimely death of Hector. I always loved and respected him very much, and do still as much as ever; and it is a return fufficient, if he pleases to accept the offers of my most humble fervice.

ver;

The Beggar's Opera hath knock'd down GulliI hope to fee Pope's Dulnefs knock down the Beggar's Opera, but not till it hath fully done its jobb.

To expofe vice, and make people laugh with innocence, does more public fervice than all the Minifters of ftate from Adam to Walpole, and fo adieu.

LETTER XXVIII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT.

OPE charges himself with this letter; he has been here two days, he is now hurrying to London, he will hurry back to Twickenham in two days more, and before the end of the week he will be, for ought I know, at Dublin. In the mean time his Dulness grows and flourishes as if he was there already. It will indeed be a noble work: the many will stare at it, the few will fmile, and all his Patrons from Bickerstaff to Gulliver will rejoice, to fee themselves adorn'd in that immortal piece.

I hear that you have had some return of your illnefs which carried you fo fuddenly from us (if indeed it was your own illness which made you in fuch hafte to be at Dublin.) Dear Swift take care of your health. I'll give you a receipt for it, à la Montagne, er which is better, à la Bruyere. Nouriffer bien votre corps; ne le fatiguer jamais: laifer rouiller l'efprit meuble inutil, voire outil dangereux: Laiffer fonner vos cloches le matin pour e-veiller les chanoines, et pour faire dormir le Doyen d'un fommeil doux et profond, qui luy procure de beaux fonges: Lever vous tard, et aller à PEglife, pour vous faire payer d'avoir bien dormi et bien dejuné. As to myself (a person about whom I concern myself very little) I must say a word or two out of complaifance to you. I am in my farm, and

*The Dunciad.

here I fhoot ftrong and tenacious roots; I have caught hold of the earth (to use a Gardener's phrase) and neither my enemies nor my friends will find it an easy matter to transplant me again. Adieu, let me hear from you, at least of you: I love you for a thousand things, for none more than for the just efteem and love which you have for all the fons of Adam.

P. S. According to Lord Bolingbroke's account I shall be at Dublin in three days. I cannot help adding a word, to defire you to expect my foul there with you by that time; but as for the jade of a body that is tack'd to it, I fear there will be no dragging it after. I affure you I have few friends here to detain me, and no powerful one at Court abfolutely to forbid my journey. I am told the Gynocracy are of opinion, that they want no better writers than Cibber and the British journalist; fo that we may live at quiet, and apply ourselves to our more abftrufe ftudies. The only Courtiers I know, or have the honour to call my friends, are John Gay and Mr. Bowry; the former is at prefent fo employed in the elevated airs of his Opera, and the latter in the exaltation of his high dignity (that of her Majefty's Waterman) that I can scarce obtain a categorical answer from either to any thing I fay to 'em. But the Opera fucceeds extremely, to yours and my extreme fatisfaction, of which he promises this post to give you a full account. I have been in a worfe condition of health than ever, and think my

im

mortality is very near out of my enjoyment: so it must be in you, and in pofterity, to make me what amends you can for dying young. Adieu. While am yours. Pray love me, and take care of

I am, I yourself.

LETTER XXIX.

March 23, 1727-8.

I

Send you a very odd thing, a paper printed in Boston in New-England, wherein you'll find a real perfon, a member of their Parliament, of the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of that Traveller has travell'd thither, it has travell'd very quick, to have folks chriften'd already by the name of the fuppofed Author. But if you object, that no child fo lately christen'd could be arrived at years of maturity to be elected into Parliament, I reply (to folve the Riddle) that the person is an Anabaptift, and not chriften'd till full age, which fets all right. However it be, the accident is very fingular, that these two names fhould be united.

Mr. Gay's Opera has been acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the whole feafon. So he has more than a fence about his thoufand pound: he'll foon be thinking of a fence about his two thousand. Shall no one of us live as we would with each other to live? Shall he have no annuity, you no fettlement on this fide, and I no

3

profpect of getting to you on the other? This world is made for Cæfar-as Cato faid, for ambitious, falfe, or flattering people to domineer in : Nay they would not, by their good will, leave us our very books, thoughts, or words, in quiet. I defpife the world yet, I affure you, more than either Gay or you, and the Court more than all the reft of the world. As for thofe Scriblers for whom you apprehend I would fupprefs my Dulnefs (which by the way, for the future, you are to call by a more pompous name, The Dunceiad) how much that neft of Hornets are my regard, will eafily appear to you when you read the Treatife of the Bathos.

At all adventures, yours and my name shall stand linked as friends to pofterity, both in verfe and profe, and (as Tully calls it) in confuetudine Studiorum. Would to God our Perfons could but as well, and as furely be infeparable; I find my other Tyes dropping from me fome worn off, fome torn off, others relaxing daily: My greatest, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, Time is shaking every moment, and it now hangs but by a thread! I am many years the older, for living fo much with one fo old, much the more helpless, for having been so long help'd and tended by her; much the more confiderate and tender, for a daily commerce with one who requir'd me juftly to be both to her; and confequently the more melancholy and thoughtful; and the lefs fit for others, who want only in a companion or a friend, to be amufed or entertained. My constitution too