attendance. It is the first time I ever solicited you in my own behalf; and if I am refused, it will be the first request you ever refused me. I do not think myself obliged to regulate my opinions by the proceedings of a House of Lords or Commons; and therefore, however they may acquit themselves in your lordship's case, I shall take the liberty of thinking and calling your lordship the ablest and faithfullest minister, and truest lover of your country, that this age has produced: and I have already taken care that you shall be so represented to posterity in spite of all the rage and malice of your enemies. And this I know will not be wholly indifferent to your lordship; who, next to a good conscience, always esteemed reputation your best possession. Your intrepid behaviour under this prosecution astonishes every one but me, who know you so well, and how little it is in the power of human actions or events to discompose you. I have seen your lordship labouring under great difficulties, and exposed to great dangers, and overcoming both, by the providence of God, and your own wisdom and courage. Your life has already been attempted by private malice; it is now pursued by public resentment. Nothing else remained. You were destined to both trials; and the same power which delivered you out of the paws of the lion and the bear, will, I trust, deliver you out of the hands of the uncircumcised.

I can write no more. You suffer for a good cause; for having preserved your country, and for having been the great instrument under God, of his present majesty's peaceable accession to the throne. This I know, and this your enemies know; and this I will take care that all the world shall know, and future

ages be convinced of

God Almighty protect you,

and continue to you that fortune and magnanimity he has endowed you with! Farewell.

JON. SWIFT.

October 11, 1722.

MY LORD,

I OFTEN receive letters franked Oxford, but always find them written and subscribed by your lordship's servant Mynett. His meaning is some business of his own, wherein I am his solicitor; but he makes his court by giving me an account of the state of your family; and perpetually adds a clause, "That your lordship soon intends to write to me." I knew you indeed when you were not so great a man as you are now, I mean when you were treasurer; but you are grown so proud since your retirement, that there is no enduring you and you have reason, for you never acted so difficult a part of life before. In the two great scenes of power and persecution you have excelled mankind; and in this of retirement, you have most injuriously forgotten your friends. Poor Prior often sent me his complaints on this occasion: and I have returned him mine. I never courted your acquaintance when you governed Europe, but you courted mine; and now you neglect me, when I use all my insinuations to keep myself in your memory. I am very sensible, that next to receiving thanks and compliments, there is nothing you more hate than writing letters; but, since I never gave you thanks, nor made you compliments, I have so much more merit than any of those thousands whom you have less obliged, by only making their fortunes, without

taking them into your friendship, as you did me; whom you always countenanced in too public and particular a manner to be forgotten, either by the world or myself; for which, never man was more proud, or less vain.

I have now been ten years soliciting for your picture; and if I had solicited you for a thousand pounds (I mean of your money, not the public) I could have prevailed in ten days. You have given me many hundred hours; can you not now give me a couple? have my mortifications been so few, or are you so malicious to add a greater than I ever yet suffered? did you ever refuse me anything I asked you? and will you now begin? In my conscience, I believe, and by the whole conduct of your life I have reason to believe, that you are too poor to bear the expense. I ever told you I was the richer man of the two and I am now richer by five hundred pounds, than I was at the time when I was boasting at your table of my wealth, before Diamond Pitt.1

I have hitherto taken up with a scurvy print of you, under which I have placed this lemma :

·Veteres actus primamque juventam,

Prosequar? ad sese mentem præsentia ducunt.

And this I will place under your picture, whenever you are rich enough to send it me. I will only promise, in return, that it shall never lose you the reputation of poverty; which, to one of your birth, patrimony, and employments, is one of the greatest glories of your life, and so shall be celebrated by me.

I entreat your lordship, if your leisure and your

1 Thomas Pitt, Esq., Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies; noted as proprietor of a celebrated diamond supposed to be the largest in the world.

health will permit, to let me know when I can be a month with you at Brampton Castle; because I have a great deal of business with you that relates to posterity. Mr. Mynett has, for some time, led me an uncomfortable life, with his ill accounts of your health; but, God be thanked, his style of late is much altered for the better.

My hearty and constant prayers are perpetually offered up for the preservation of you and your excellent family. Pray, my lord, write to me: or you never loved me, or I have done something to deserve your displeasure. My lord and Lady Harriot, my brother and sister, pretend to atone by making me fine presents; but I would have his lordship know, that I would value two of his lines more than two of his manors, &c.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS

TO THE REV. DR. TISDALL.

(Tisdall had accused Swift of double-dealing, to his prejudice with Stella, whom he wished to marry. We learn, in fact, from the Journal' and elsewhere that Swift had not a very high opinion of the reverend doctor.)

LONDON, April 20, 1704.

YESTERDAY coming from the country I found your letter, which had been four or five days arrived, and by neglect was not forwarded as it ought. You have got three epithets for my former letter, which I believe are all unjust you say it was unfriendly, unkind, and unaccountable. The two first, I suppose, may pass but for one; saving (as Captain Fluellin

says, the phrase is) a little variation. I shall therefore answer those two as I can; and for the last, I return it you again by these presents, assuring you that there is more unaccountability in your letter's little finger, than in mine's whole body. And one strain I observe in it, which is frequent enough; you talk in a mystical sort of way, as if you would have me believe I had some great design, and that you had found it out: your phrases are, "that my letter had the effect you judge I designed; that you are amazed to reflect on what you judge the cause of it; and wish it may be in your power to love and value me while you live," &c. In answer to all this, I might with good pretence enough talk starchly, and affect ignorance of what you would be at; but my conjecture is, that you think I obstructed your inclinations, to please my own, and that my intentions were the same as yours. In answer to all which, I will, upon my conscience and honour tell you the naked truth. First, I think I have said to you before, that, if my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly, among all persons on earth, make your choice: because I never saw that person whose conversation I entirely valued but hers; this was the utmost I ever gave way to. And secondly, I must assure you sincerely, that this regard of mine never once entered into my head to be an impediment to you but I judged it would, perhaps, be a clog to your rising in the world: and I did not conceive you were then rich enough to make yourself and her happy and easy. But that objection is now quite removed by what you have at present; overtures to the mother, without the daughter's giving, and by the assurances of Eaton's livings. I told you indeed,