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not change like gaming by the invention of new tricks, I am ignorant? But I believe in your time, you would never, as a Minister, have fuffered an Act to pass through the House of Commons, only because you were fure of a majority in the House of Lords to throw it out; because it would be unpopular, and confequently a lofs of reputation. Yet this we are told hath been the Cafe in the qualificationbill relating to Penfioners. It should feem to me, that Corruption like avarice hath no bounds. I had opportunities to know the proceedings of your miniftry better than any other man of my rank; and having not much to do, I have often compared it with thefe laft fixteen years of a profound Peace all over Europe, and we running feven millions in debt. I am forced to play at small game, to fet the beafts here a madding, merely for want of better game, * Tentanda via eft qua me quoque poffim, &c.The D-take thofe politicks, where a Dunce might govern for a dozen years together. I will go in perfon to England, if I am provoked, and fend for the Dictator from the plough. I difdain to fay†O mihi præteritos- but § cruda deo viridifque Senectus. Pray my Lord how

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* New ways I must attempt, my groveling Name To raife aloft, and wing my Flight to Fame. Dryd. +O! could I turn to that fair Prime again. Dryd. Yet in his Years are seen, A manly vigour and autumnal Green.

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*

are the gardens? have you taken down the mount and removed the yew hedges? Have you not bad weather for the fpring-corn? Hath Mr. Pope gone farther in his Ethic Poems? And is the head-land fown with wheat? And what fays Polybius? And how doth my Lord St, John? Which laft queftion is very material to me, because I love Burgundy, and riding between Twickenham and Dawley.-I built a wall five years ago, and when the mafons played the knaves, nothing delighted me so much as to ftand by, while my fervants threw down. what was amifs: I have likewife feen a Monkey overthrow all the difhes and plates in a kitchen, merely for the pleasure of feeing them tumble and hearing the clatter they made in their fall. I wish you would invite me to fuch another entertainment; but you think as I ought to think, that it is time for me to have done in the world, and fo I would, if I could get into a better before I was called into the beft and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole. I wonder you are not ashamed to let me pine away in this kingdom while are out of power.

you

I come from looking over the + Melange a'bove written, and declare it to be a true copy of my prefent difpofition, which must needs please

*Lord St. John of Batterfea, Father to Lord Bolingbroke.

+ Or Medly.

please you, fince nothing was ever more difpleafing to my felf. I defire you to present my moft humble respects to my Lady.

I

LETTER XXXVI.

Dr. SWIFT to Lord BOLINGBROKE.

Dublin, April 5, 1729.

Do not think it could be poffible for me to hear better news than that of your getting over your scurvy fuit, which always hung as a dead weight on my heart; I hated it in all its circumstances, as it affected your fortune and quiet, and in a fituation of life that must make it every way vexatious. And, as I am infinitely obliged to you for the juftice you do me in fuppofing your affairs do at least concern me as much as my own; fo I would never have pardoned your omitting it. But before I go on, I cannot forbear mentioning what I read laft fummer in a news-paper, that you were writing the hiftory of your own Times. I suppose such a report might arife from what was not fecret among your friends, of your intention to write another kind of history; which you often promised Mr. Pope and me to do: I know he defireth it very much, and I am fure I defire nothing more, for the honour and 'love I bear you, and the perfect knowledge I have of your publick virtue. My Lord, I have no

other

other notion of Oeconomy, than that it is the parent of Liberty and Eafe, and I am not the only friend you have who hath chid you in his heart for the neglect of it, although not with his mouth, as I have done. For, there is a filly error in the world, even among friends otherwise very good, not to intermeddle with mens affairs in such nice matters. And, my Lord, I have made a maxim, that should be written in letters of diamonds, That a wife man ought to have Money in his head, but not in his heart. Pray, my Lord, enquire whether your Prototype, my Lord Digby, after the Reftoration when he was at Bristol, did not take fome care of his fortune, notwithstanding that quotation I once fent you out of his speech to the House of Commons? In my confcience, I believe fortune, like other drabbs, valueth a man gradually less for every year he liveth. I have demonftration for it; because, if I play at piquet for fix-pence with a man or woman two years younger than myself, I always lofe and there is a young girl of twenty who never faileth of winning my money at Back-gammon, although he is a bungler, and the game be Ecclefiaftic. As to the publick, I confefs nothing could cure my itch of meddling with it but these frequent returns of deafness, which have hindered me from paffing last winter in London; yet I cannot but confider the perfidiousness of fome people, who I thought when I was laft there, upon a change that happened,

were

were the most impudent in forgetting their profeffions that I have ever known. Pray will you please to take your pen and blot me out that political maxim from whatever book it is in? that Res nolunt diu male adminiftrari; the commonnefs maketh me not know who is the author, but sure he must be some Modern,

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I am forry for Lady Bolingbroke's ill health; but I proteft I never knew a very deserving person of that fex, who had not too much reafon to complain of ill health. I never wake without finding life a more infignificant thing than it was the day before; which is one great advantage I get by living in this country, where there is nothing I fhall be forry to lofe; but my greatest misery is recollecting the fcene of twenty years past, and then all on a sudden dropping into the prefent. I remember when I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end of my line, which I drew up almoft on the ground, but it dropt in, and the disappointment vexeth me to this very day, and I believe it was the type of all of all my future difappointments. I should be ashamed to fay this to you, if you had not a fpirit fitter to bear your own miffortunes, than I have to think of them. Is there patience left to reflect by what qualities wealth and greatness are got, and by what qualities they are loft? I have read my friend Congreve's verfes

The Publick Affairs cannot be long ill managed.

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