the purpose, but therefore the more warm and the more angry: * Non noftrum eft, Tantas componere lites. I ftay at Twitnam, without fo much as reading news-papers, votes, or any other paltry pamphlets. Mr. Stopford will carry you a whole parcel of them, which are fent for your diverfion, but not Imitation. For my own part, methinks I am at Glubdubdrib with none but Ancients and Spirits about me.

I am rather better than I use to be at this season, but my hand (tho' as you fee, it has not loft its cunning) is frequently in very aukward fenfations, rather than pain. But to convince you it is pretty well, it has done fome mischief already, and just been strong enough to cut the other hand, while it was aiming to prune a fruit tree.

Lady Bolingbroke has writ you a long, lively letter, which will attend this: She has very bad health, he very good. very good. Lord Peterborow has writ twice to you; we fancy fome letters have been intercepted, or loft by accident. About ten thousand things I want to tell you: I wish you were as impatient to hear them, for if fo, you would, you must come early this fpring. Adieu. Let me have a line from you. I am vext at lofing Mr. Stopford as foon as I knew him: but I thank God I have known him no longer. If every man one begins to value

*It is not mine fuch Factions to compofe.

value must settle in Ireland, pray make me know more of 'em, and I forgive you this

one.

LETTER XXII.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SwIFT.

Oct. 2, 1727.

T is a perfect trouble to me to write to ITy is, a lite you, and your kind letter left for me at Mr. Gay's affected me so much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what to say to you; I only feel that I wish you well in every circumstance of life: that 'tis almost as good to be hated, as to be loved, confidering the pain it is to minds of any tender turn, to find themfelves fo utterly impotent to do any good, or give any ease to those who deferve most from us. I would very fain know, as foon as you recover your complaints, or any part of them. Would to God I could eafe any of them, or had been able even to have alleviated any! I found I was not, and truly it grieved me. I was forry to find you could think your felf eafier in any Houfe than in mine, tho' at the fame time. I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it seem'd to want that tenderness. I can't explain my meaning, perhaps you know it: But the best way of convincing you of my indulgence, will be, if I VOL. VII. G

live,

live, to vifit you in Ireland, and act there as much in my own way as you did here in yours. I will not leave your roof, if I am ill. To your bad health I fear there was added fome difagreeable news from Ireland, which might occafion your fo fudden departure: for the last time I faw you at Hammersmith, you affured me you would not leave us, unless your health grew better, this whole winter; and I don't find it did fo. I never comply'd fo unwillingly in my life with any friend as with you, in ftaying fo intirely from you: nor could I have had the conftancy to do it, if you had not promised that before you went, we fhou'd meet, and you would fend to us all to come. have given your remembrances to those you mention in yours: we are quite forry for you, I mean for our felves. I hope as you do, that we shall meet in a more durable and more fatisfactory ftate; but the lefs fure I am of that, the more I would indulge it in this. We are to believe we shall have fomething better than even a friend, there, but certainly here we have nothing fo good.

I

Adieu for this time; may you find every friend you go to as pleas'd and happy, as every friend you went from is forry and troubled.

Yours, &c.

LETTER

I

LETTER XXIII.

Dr. SWIFT to Mr. POPE.

Dublin, Oct. 12, 1727.

HAVE been long reafoning with myself upon the condition I am in, and in conclufion have thought it beft to return to what fortune hath made my home; I have here a large houfe, and fervants and conveniencies about me. I may be worse than I am, and I have no where to retire: I therefore thought it best to return to Ireland, rather than go to any diftant place in England. Here is my maintenance, and here my convenience. If it please God to restore me to my health, I fhall readily make a third journey; if not, we must part as all human creatures have parted. You are the beft and kindeft friend in the world, and I know no body alive or dead to whom I am fo much obliged; and, if ever you made me angry, it was for your too much care about me. I have often wished that God Almighty would be fo eafy to the weakness of Mankind, as to let old friends be acquainted in another ftate; and, if I were to write an Utopia for heaven, that would be one of my Schemes. This wildness you must allow for, becaufe I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be fick here, without the vexation of making my friends G 2 uneafy;

uneafy; yet my giddiness alone would not have done, if that unfociable comfortlefs deafness had not quite tired me: And, I believe, I should have returned from the Inn, if I had not feared it was only a fhort intermiffion, and the year was late, and my licence expiring. Surely, befides all other faults, I should be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and kindness. But it hath pleafed God that you are not in a state of health, to be mortified with the care and fickness of a friend: Two fick friends never did well together; fuch an office is fitter for fervants and humble companions, to whom it is wholly indifferent, whether we give them trouble or no: The cafe would be quite otherwise if you were with me; you could refuse to see any body: Here is a large house where we need not hear each other if we were both fick I have a race of orderly elderly people of both fexes at command, who are of no confequence, and have gifts proper for attending us; who can bawl when I am deaf, and tread foftly when I am only giddy and would fleep.

I had another reafon for my hafte hither, which was changing my Agent, the old one having terribly involved my little affairs; to which however I am grown fo indifferent, that I believe I fhall lofe two or three hundred pounds rather than plague myself with accompts: fo that I am very well qualified to be a Lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray