of improbable lies, and for his part, he hardly believed a word of it, and fo much for Gul liver.

Going to England is a very good thing, if it were not attended with an ugly circumftance of returning to Ireland: It is a fhame you do not perfuade your Ministers to keep me on that fide, if it were but by a court expedient of keeping me in prifon for a plotter; but at the fame time I must tell you, that fuch journeys very much shorten my life, for a month here is longer than fix at Twickenham.

How cometh friend Gay to be so tedious? another man can publish fifty thousand Lies fooner than he can publish fifty Fables.

*

I am just going to perform a very good office, it is to affift with the Archbishop, in degrading a Parson who coupleth all our beggars, by which I fhall make one happy man: and decide the great question of an indelible character, in favour of the principles in fashion; and this I hope you will reprefent to the Ministry in my favour, as a point of merit; fo farewel until I

return.

I am come back, and have deprived the Parfon, who by a law here is to be hanged the next couple he marrieth; he declared to us, that he refolved to be hanged; only defired when he was to go to the Gallows, the Archbishop would take off his Excommunication. Is not he a good Catholick? and yet he is but a Scotch

* Dr. William King.

man.

man.

This is the only Irish event I ever troubled you with, and I think it deferveth notice. Let me add, that if I were Gulliver's friend, I would defire all my acquaintance to give out that his copy was bafely mangled, and abused, and added to, and blotted out by the printer; for fo to me it feemeth, in the fecond volume particularly. Adieu.

*

I

LETTER XX.

Dr. SWIFT to Mr. POPE.

Dec. 5, 1726.

Believe the hurt in your hand affecteth me more than it doth yourself, and with reafon, because I may probably be a greater lofer by it. What have accidents to do with those who are neither jockeys nor fox-hunters, nor bullies, nor drunkards? and yet a rafcally Groom shall gallop a foundered horse ten miles upon a causeway, and get home safe.

I am very much pleased that you approve what was fent, because I remember to have heard a great man fay, that nothing required more judgment than making a prefent; which when it is done to thofe of high rank, ought

to

*See Captain Gulliver's Letter to his Coufin Sympfon, prefixed to Gulliver's Travels. Printed by George Faulkner in Dublin,

to be of fomething that is not readily got for money. You oblige me, and at the fame time do me juftice in what you observe as to Mr. P. Befides it is too late in life for me to act otherwise, and therefore I follow a very eafy road to virtue, and purchase it cheap. If you will give me leave to joyn us, is not your life and mine a state of power, and dependance a state of flavery? We care not three pence whether a Prince or Minifter will fee us or no: We are not afraid of having ill Offices done us, nor are at the trouble of guarding our words for fear of giving offence. I do agree that riches are Liberty, but then we are to put into the balance how long our apprenticeship is to last in acquiring them.

Since you have received the verses, Í most earneftly intreat you to burn those which you do not approve, and in those few where you may not dislike fome Parts, blot out the reft, and sometimes, (altho' it be against the laziness of your nature) be fo kind to make a few corrections, if the matter will bear them. I have fome few of those things I call thoughts moral and diverting; if you pleafe I will fend the beft I can pick from them, to add to the new volume. I have reafon to chufe the method you mention of mixing the feveral verfes, and I hope thereby among the bad Critics to be entitled to more merit than is my due.

This moment I am so happy to have a letter from my Lord Peterborow, for which I entreat

you

you

humble refpects

will present him with my and thanks, although he all-to-be-Gullivers me by very strong infinuations. Although you defpife Riddles, I am ftrongly tempted to fend a parcel to be printed by themselves, and make a nine-penny jobb for the Bookfeller. There are fome of my own, wherein I exceed mankind. *Mira Poemata! the moft folemn that were ever feen; and fome writ by others, admirable indeed, but far inferior to mine, but I will not praise myself. You approve that writer who laugheth and maketh others laugh; but why fhould I who hate the world, or you who do not love it, make it fo happy? therefore I refolve from henceforth to handle only ferious fubjects, nifi quid tu, docte Trebati, Diffentis. Yours, &c.

LETTER XXI.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SWIFT.

March 8, 1726-7.

MR.& Stopford will be the bearer of this

letter, for whofe acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you; and I think the acquaintance of fo valuable, ingenious, and

* Wonderful Poems.

+Unless you, and my learned Friend, differ in Opinion.

§ Dr. James Stopford, Minifter of Finglafs.

and unaffected a Man, to be none of the leaft obligations.

Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleas'd with this joint-volume, in which methinks we look like friends, fide by fide, ferious and merry by turns, converfing interchangeably, and walking down hand in hand to pofterity; not in the ftiff forms of learned Authors, flattering each other, and fetting the reft of mankind at nought but in a free, un-important, natural eafy manner; diverting others juft as we diverted our felves. The third volume confifts of Verses, but I would chufe to print none but fuch as have fome peculiarity, and may be diftinguished for ours, from other writers. There's no end of making Books, Solomon faid, and above all of making Mifcellanies, which all Men can make. For unless there be a character in every piece, like the mark of the Elect, I should not care to be one of the Twelve thousand figned.

You received, I hope, fome commendatory verses from a Horfe and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic Epiftle of Mrs. Gulliver. The Bookfeller would fain have printed 'em before the fecond Edition of the Book, but I would not permit it without your approbation; nor do I much like them. You fee how much like a Poet I write, and yet if you were with us, you'd be deep in Politicks. People are very warm, and very angry, very little to

the