pupils. Pray God give you grace to be hated by him and all such beasts while you live! I excused your bashfulness to the lieute nant, who said he observed and understood it, and liked you the better. He could govern a wiser nation better, but fools are fit to deal with fools; and he seems to mistake our calibre, and treats de haut en bas, and gives no sugar plums. Our dean Maule and Dr. Tisdall have taken upon them the care of the church, and make wise speeches of what they will amend in St. Andrew's vestry every week, to a crew of parsons of their own kind and importance. The primate and the earl of Cavan govern the house of lords. The archbishop of Dublin attacked the same in the castle for giving a good living to a certain animal called a Welsh black, which the other excused, alleging he was preferred to it by lord Townshend. It is a cant word for a deer-stealer. This fellow was leader of a gang, and had the honor of hanging half a dozen of his fellows in quality of informer, which was his merit. If you cannot match ne that in Italy, step to Muscovy, and from thence to the Hottentots. I am just going out of town for two days, else I would have filled my paper with more nothings. Pray God bless you, and send you safe back to this place, which it is a shame for any man of worth to call his home.

TO LORD PALMERSTON.

Dublin, January 1, 1726. MY LORD, I am desired by one Mr. Curtis, a clergyman of this town, to write to your lordship upon an affair he has much at heart, and wherein he has been very unjustly and injuriously treated. I do now call to mind what I hear your lordship has written hither, that you were pleased many years ago, at my recommendation, to give Dr. Ellwood a grant of a chamber in the college which is at your disposal; for I had then some credit with your lordship, which I am told I have now lost, although I am ignorant of the reason. I shall therefore only inform your lordship in one point. When you gave that grant, it was understood to continue during Dr. Ellwood's continuance in the college: but he, growing to be a senior fellow and requiring more conveniencies, by changing one room and purchasing another, got into a more convenient apartment, and therefore those who now derive under the doctor have, during the doctor's life, the same property as if they derived under your lordship;

during the term of his lease, and take a more convenient farm. This is directly the case, and must convince your lordship immediately; for Mr. Curtis paid for the chamber, either to the doctor or to those who derived under him, and till the doctor dies or leaves the college, the grant is good.

I will say nothing of Mr. Curtis's character, because the affair is a matter of short plain justice; and, besides, because I would not willingly do the young man an injury, as I happened to do to another whom I recommended to your lordship merely for your own service, and whom you afterwards rejected, expressing your reason for doing so, that I had recommended him, by which you lost the very person of the whole kingdom who by his honesty and abilities could have been most useful to you in your offices here. But these are some of the refinements among you great men, which are above my low understanding. And, whatever your lordship thinks of me, I shall still remain your lordship's most obedient and most humble

servant.

TO LORD PALMERSTON.

January 29, 1726. MY LORD, I desire you will give yourself the last trouble I shall ever put you to; I mean of reading this letter. I do entirely acquit you of any injury or injustice done to Mr. Curtis, and if you had read that passage relating to his bad usage a second time, you could not possibly have so ill understood me. The injury and injustice he received were from those who claimed a title to his chambers, took away his key, reviled and threatened to beat him, with a great deal more of the like brutal conduct. Whereupon at his request I laid the case before you, as it appeared to me. And it would have been very strange if, on account of a trifle, and of a person for whom I have no concern, further than as he was employed by me on the character he bears of piety and learning, I should charge you with injury and injustice to him, when I knew from himself and Mr. Reading that you were not answerable for either.

As you state the case of tenant at will, it is certain no law can compel you; but, to say the truth, I then had not law in my thoughts.

Now, if what I writ of injury and injustice were wholly applied in plain terms to one or two of the college here, whose names were below my remembrance, you will consider how I could deserve an

answer in every line full of foul invectives, open reproaches, jest ing flirts, and contumelious terms, and what title you have to give me such contumelious treatment who never did you the least injury or received the least obligation from you. I own myself indebted to sir William Temple for recommending me to the late king, although without success, and for his choice of me to take care of his posthumous writings. But I hope you will not charge my living in his family as an obligation, for I was educated to little purpose if I retired to his house on any other motives than the benefit of his conversation and advice, and the opportunity of pursuing my studies. For, being born to no fortune, I was at his death as far to seek as ever, and perhaps you will allow that I was of some use to him. This I will venture to say, that in the time when I had some little credit I did fifty times more for fifty people, from whom I never received the least service or assistance. Yet I should not be pleased to hear a relation of mine reproaching them for ingratitude, although many of them well deserve it; for, thanks to party, I have met in both kingdoms with ingratitude enough.

If I have been ill informed in what you mention of Mr. Stanton, you have not been much better, that I declared no regard to the family (as you express it) was a restraint to me. I never had the least occasion to use any such words. The last time I saw you in London was the last intercourse I ever had with the family. But having always trusted to my own innocence, I shall not be inquisitive to know my accusers.

When I mentioned my loss of interest with you, I did it with concern, but I had no resentment, because I supposed it only to arise from different sentiments in public matters.

My lord, if my letter were polite, it was against my intentions, and I desire your pardon for it; if I have wit, I will keep it to show when I am angry, which at present I am not; because, though nothing can excuse those intemperate words your pen has let fall, yet I shall give allowance to a hasty person, hurried on by a mistake beyond all rules of decency. If a first minister of state had used me as you have done, he should have heard from me in another style, because in that case retaliating would be thought a mark of courage but as your lordship is not in a situation to do me good, nor, I am sure, of a disposition to do me mischief, so I should lose the merit of being bold, because I could incur no danger, if I gave

point alone we are exactly equal, but in wit and politeness I am ready to yield to you as much as I do in titles and estate.

I have found out one secret, that, although you call me a great wit, you do not think me so, otherwise you would have been too cautious to have writ me such a letter.

You conclude with saying you are ready to ask pardon where you have offended. Of this I acquit you, because I have not taken the offence, but whether you will acquit yourself must be left to your conscience and honor.

I have formerly upon occasion been your humble servant in Ireland, and should not refuse to be so still; but you have so useful and excellent a friend in Mr. Reading, that you need no other, and I hope my good opinion of him will not lessen yours. I am, my lord, your most humble servant.

TO MR. WORRALL.

London, April 16, 1726.

THE ladies have told you all my adventures, and I hear you are ruining me with dung. I have writ several times to the ladies, and shall soon do so again. I send you enclosed the bill of lading for a picture that has lain long at sea; you will be so kind to get it out of the custom-house. Mr. Medlycott will make it easy if there should be any difficulties. My humble service to Mrs. Worrall, and the ladies, and all my friends. I thank God I am in pretty good health. I have now company with me; I can say no more. I hope you are all well.

I got no voice at Oxford; but am endeavoring for one here.

TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

April 28, 1726. MY LORD,-Your lordship having at my request obtained for me an hour from sir Robert Walpole, I accordingly attended him yesterday at eight o'clock in the morning, and had somewhat more than an hour's conversation with him. Your lordship was this day pleased to inquire what passed between that great minister and me; to which I gave you some general answers, from whence you said you could comprehend little or nothing.

I had no other design in desiring to see sir Robert Walpole than to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in a true light, not only

cause I understood the affairs of that kingdom tolerably well, and observed the representations he had received were such as I could not agree to; my principal design was to set him right, not only for the service of Ireland, but likewise of England, and of his own administration.

I failed very much in my design; for I saw he had conceived opinions, from the example and practices of the present and some former governors, which I could not reconcile to the notions I had of liberty, a possession always understood by the British nation to be the inheritance of a human creature.

Sir Robert Walpole was pleased to enlarge very much upon the subject of Ireland, in a manner so alien from what I conceived to be rights and privileges of a subject of England, that I did not think proper to debate the matter with him so much as I otherwise might, because I found it would be in vain. I shall therefore, without entering into dispute, make bold to mention to your lordship some few grievances of that kingdom, as it consists of a people who, beside a natural right of enjoying the privileges of subjects, have also a claim of merit from their extraordinary loyalty to the present king [George I.] and his family.

First, That all persons born in Ireland are called and treated as Irishmen, although their fathers and grandfathers were born in England; and their predecessors having been conquerors of Ireland, it is humbly conceived they ought to be on as good a foot as any subjects of Britain, according to the practice of all other nations, and particularly of the Greeks and Romans.

Secondly, That they are denied the natural liberty of exporting their manufactures to any country which is not engaged in a war with England.

Thirdly, That whereas there is a university in Ireland, founded by queen Elizabeth, where youth are instructed with a much stricter discipline than either in Oxford or Cambridge; it lies under the greatest discouragements, by filling all the principal employments, civil and ecclesiastical, with persons from England, who have neither interest, property, acquaintance, nor alliance in that kingdom, contrary to the practice of all other states in Europe which are governed by viceroys, at least what hath never been used without the utmost discontents of the people.

Fourthly, That several of the bishops sent over to Ireland, having