his life; because I cannot be a great Lord, I would acquire what is a kind of fubfidium, I would endeavour that my betters fhould feek me by the merit of fomething diftinguifhable, instead of my feeking them. The defire of enjoying it in aftertimes is owing to the fpirit and folly of youth: but with age we learn to know the house is so full, that there is no room for above one or two at moft in an age, through the whole world. My Lord, I hate and love to write to you, it gives me pleasure, and kills me with melancholy. The D-take ftupidity, that it will not come to fupply the want of philofophy.

LETTER XLII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Oct. 31, 1729..

OU were fo careful of fending me the Dun-

You

ciad, that I have received five of them, and have pleafed four friends. I am one of every body who approve every part of it, Text and Comment; but am one abftracted from every body, in the happinefs of being recorded your friend, while wit, and humour, and politenefs fhall have any memorial among us. As for your octavo edition, we know nothing of it, for we have an octavo of our own, which hath fold wonderfully, confidering our poverty, and dulnefs the confequence of it.

I writ this poft to Lord B. and tell him in my letter, that, with a great deal of lofs for a frolick, I will fly as foon as build; I have neither years, nor fpirits, nor money, nor patience for fuch amufements The frolick is gone off, and I am only 100. the poorer. But this kingdom is grown

fo exceffively poor, that we wife men must think of nothing but getting a little ready money. It is thought there are not two hundred thousand pounds of fpecies in the whole ifland; for we return thrice as much to our Abfentees, as we get by trade, and fo are all inevitably undone; which I have been telling them in print these ten years, to as little purpose as if it came from the pulpit. And this is enough for Irish politics, which I only mention, because it fo nearly touches myself. I muft repeat what, I believe, I have faid before, that I pity you much more than Mrs. Pope. Such a parent and friend hourly declining before your eyes is an object very unfit for your health, and duty, and tender difpofition; and I pray God it may not affect you too much. I am as much fatisfied that your additional 100 l. per Annum is for your life as if it were for ever. You have enough to leave your friends, I would not have them glad to be rid of you; and I fhall take care that none but my enemies will be glad to get rid of me. You have embroiled me with Lord B-- about the figure of living, and the pleasure of giving. I am under the neceffity of fome little paultry figure in the ftation I am but I make it as little as poffible. As to the other part you are base, because I thought myself as great a giver as ever was of my ability; and yet in proportion you exceed, and have kept it till now a fecret even from me, when I wondred how you were able to live with your whole little ' Adieu.

revenue.

LET

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LETTER XLIII

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT.'

Nov. 19, 1729.

Find that you have laid afide your project of building in Ireland, and that we fhall fee you in this island cum zephyris, et hirundine prima. I know not whether the love of fame increases as we advance in age; fure I am that the force of friendfhip does. I lov'd you almoft twenty years ago, I thought of you as well as I do now, better was beyond the power of conception, or, to avoid an equivoque, beyond the extent of my ideas. Whether you are more obliged to me for loving you as well when I knew you lefs, or for loving you as well after loving you so many years, I fhall not determine. What I would fay is this: whilft my mind grows daily more independant of the world, and feels lefs need of leaning on external objects, the ideas of friendship return oftner, they bufy me, they warm me more: Is it that we grow more tender as the moment of our great feparation approaches? or is it that they who are to live together in another ftate, (for vera amicitia non nifi inter bonos) begin to feel more strongly that divine fympathy which is to be the great band of their future fociety? There is no one thought which fooths my mind like this: I encourage my imagination to purfue it, and am heartily afflicted when another faculty of the intellect comes boifterously in, and

*

wakes

*Viz. Reafon. Tully (or, what is much the fame, his Difciple) obferves fomething like this on the like occafion, where, fpeaking of Plato's famous book of the Soul, he fays, Nefcio quomodo, dum lego, adfentior: cum

I

pofui

wakes me from fo pleasing a dream, if it be a dream. I will dwell no more on Oeconomicks than I have done in my former letter. Thus much only I will fay, that otium cum dignitate is to be had with 500l. a year as well as with 5000: the difference will be found in the value of the man, and not in that of the estate. I do affure you, that I have never quitted the defign of collecting, revifing, improving, and extending feveral materials which are till in my power; and I hope that the time of fetting myself about this laft work of my life is not far off. Many papers of much curiofity and importance are loft, and fome of them in a manner which would furprize and anger you. However I fhall be able to convey feveral great truths to pofterity, fo clearly and fo authentically, that the Burnets and the Oldmixons of another age may rail, but not be able to deceive. Adieu, my friend. 1 have taken up more of this paper than belongs to me, fince Pope is to write to you; no matter, for, upon recollection, the rules of proportion are not broken; he will fay as much to you in one page, as I have faid in three. Bid him talk to you of the work he is about, I hope in good earnest; it is a fine one; and will be, in his hands, an original *. His fole complaint is, that he finds it too eafy in the execution. This flatters his lazinefs, it flatters my judgment, who always thought that (univerfal as his talents are) this is eminently and peculiarly

pofui librum, et mecum ipfe de immortalitate animorum cœpi cogitare, adfenfio illa omnis elabitur. Cicero, feems to have had but a confufed notion of the caufe, which the Letter-writer has here explained, namely, that the imagination is always ready to indulge fo flattering an idea, but feverer reafon corrects and difclaims it. As to RELIGION, that is out of the queftion; for Tully wrote to his few philofophic friends.

*Efay on Man.

his, above all the writers I know living or dead; I do not except Horace.

Adieu.

LETTER XLIV.

Nov. 28, 1729.

HIS letter (like all mine) will be a Rhapso

Tdy; it is many years ago fince I wrote as a

Wit*. How many occurrences or informations muft one omit, if one determined to fay nothing that one could not say prettily? I lately receiv'd from the widow of one dead correfpondent, and the father of another, feveral of my own letters of about fifteen and twenty years old; and it was not unentertaining to myself to obferve, how and by what degrees I ceas'd to be a witty writter; as either my experience grew on the one hand, or my affection to my correfpondents on the other. Now as I love you better than most I have ever met with in the world, and efteem you too the more, the longer I have compared you with the rest of the world; To inevitably I write to you more negligently, that is, more openly, and what all but fuch as love one another will call writing worse. Ifmile to think how Curl would be bit, were our Epiftles to fall into his hands, and how gloriously they would fall fhort of every ingenious reader's expectations?

You can't imagine what a vanity it is to me, tó have fomething to rebuke you for in the way of Oeconomy. I love the man that builds a houfe fubito ingenio, and makes a wall for a horfe: then cries, "We wife men must think of nothing but

getting ready money." I am glad you approve my annuity; all we have in this world is no more *He used to value himself on this particular.

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than