Lift of Names in Arrears at the Treasury, which would at least take up your feven Years Expedient to discharge even one half. I am of Opinion, if you will not be offended, that the furest Course would be to get your Friend who lodgeth in your House to recommend you to the next chief Governor who cometh over here for a good Civil Employment, or to be one of his <Secretaries, which your Parliament-men are fond enough of, when there is no Room at Home. The Wine is good and reasonable; you may dine twice a week at the Deanry-house; there is a Set of Company in this Town fufficient for one Man; Folks will admire you, because they have read you, and read of you; and a good Employment will make you live tolerably in London, or sumptuously here; or if you divide between both Places it will be for your Health. I wish I could do more than say I love you. I left you in a good Way both for the late Court, and the Succeffors; and by the Force of too much Honesty or too little fublunary Wisdom, you fell between two Stools. Take Care of your Health and Money; be lefs modeft and more active, or else turn Parfon and get a Bifhoprick here: Would to God they would fend us as good ones from your Side!

I am ever, &c.

LET

I

LETTER VI.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SWIFT.

Jan. 12, 1723.

Find a rebuke in a late Letter of yours that both ftings and pleaseth me extremely. Your faying that I ought to have writ a Postfcript to my friend Gay's, makes me not content to write less than a whole Letter; and your feeming to take his kindly, gives me hopes you will look upon this as a fincere effect of Friendship. Indeed as I cannot but own the Lazinefs with which you tax me, and with which I may equally charge you, for both of us have had (and one of us hath both had and given) a Surfeit of writing; fo I really thought you would know your felf to be fo certainly intitled to my Friendship, that it was a poffeffion you could not imagine stood in need of any further Deeds or Writings to affure you of it.

Whatever you feem to think of your withdrawn and separate state, at this distance, and in this Abfence, Dean Swift lives ftill in England, in every place and company where he would chufe to live, and I find him in all the Converfations I keep, and in all the Hearts in which I defire any share.

We have never met these many years without mention of you. Befides my old Acquain

tance,

tance, I have found that all my friends of a latter date are fuch as were yours before: Lord Oxford, Lord Harcourt, and Lord Harley, may look upon me as one entailed upon them by you: Lord Bolingbroke is now returned (as I hope) to take Me with all his other Hereditary Rights: and, indeed, he seems grown fo much a Philofopher, as to set his heart upon fome of them as little, as upon the Poet you gave him. It is fure my ill fate, that all thofe I most loved, and with whom I have most lived, must be banished: After both of you left England, my conftant Hoft was the Bishop of Rochester. Sure this is a Nation that is curfedly afraid of being over-run with too much Politeness, and cannot regain one great Genius, but at the expence of another. I tremble for my Lord Peterborough (whom I now lodge with) he has too much Wit, as well as Courage, to make a folid General: and if he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banish himself. This leads me to give you fome account of the manner of my life and Converfation, which has been infinitely more. various and diffipated, than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all Sexes,. Parties, and Profeffions. A Glut of Study and Retirement in the first Part of my life, caft me into this; and this I begin to fee will throw me again into Study and Retirement.

The

* Dr. Atterbury, who was banished in 1722.

The Civilities I have met with from oppalite Setts of people, have hindered me from being violent or four to any Party; but at the fame time the Obfervations and Experiences I cannot but have collected, have made me lefs fond of, and less surprized at, any: I am therefore the more afflicted and the more angry at the Violences and Hardships I fee practifed by either. The merry Vein you knew me in, is funk into a Turn of Reflection, that has made the world pretty indifferent to me; and yet I have acquired a Quietnefs of mind, which by fits improves into a certain degree of Chearfulnefs, enough to make me juft fo good humoured as to with that world well. My Friendships are increased by new ones, yet no part of the warmth I felt for the old is diminished. Averfions I have none, but to Knaves, (for Fools I have learned to bear with) and fuch I cannot be commonly civil to; for I think thofe men are next to Knaves who converse with them. The greatest Man in power of this fort fhall hardly make me bow to him, unless I had a perfonal obligation, and that I will take care not to have. The top pleasure of my life is one I learned from you, both how to gain, and how to use, the Freedom of Friendship with men much my Superiors. To have pleased great men, according to Horace, is a praife; but not to have flattered them and yet not have displeased them is a greater. I have carefully avoided all intercourse with Poets VOL. VII.

D

and

and Scriblers, unless where by great chance I have found a modeft one. By these means I have had no quarrels with any perfonally; none have been enemies, but who were also Strangers to me; and as there is no need of an Eclaircisment with fuch, whatever they write or said I never retaliated, not only never seeming to know, but often really never knowing any thing of the matter. There are very few things that give me the Anxiety of a Wish; the strongest I have would be to pass my Days with you, and a few fuch as you: But Fate hath difperfed them all about the world; and I find to wish it is as vain, as to wish to see the Millennium and the Kingdom of the Just upon earth.

If I have finned in my long filence, confider there is one to whom you yourself have been as great a finner. As foon as you fee his Hand, you will learn to do me juftice, and feel in your heart how long a man may be filent to those he truly loves and respects.

LETTER