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prives us of a great deal; and inftead of leaving. us what we cultivated, and expected to flourish and adorn us, gives us only what is of fome little use, by accident. Thus I have acquired, without my feeking, a few chance-acquaintance, of young men, who look rather to the paft age than the prefent, and therefore the future may have fome hopes of them. If I love them, it is because they honour fome of those whom I, and the world, have loft, or are lofing. Two or three of them have diftinguifh'd themselves in Parliament, and you will own in a very uncommon manner, when I tell you it is by their afferting of Independency, and contempt of Corruption. One or two are link'd to me by their love of the fame ftudies and the fame authors: but I will own to you, my moral capacity has got fo much the better of my poetical, that I have few acquaintance on the latter fcore, and none without a cafting weight on the former. But I find my heart harden'd and blunt to new impreffions, it will fcarce receive or retain affections of yesterday; and thofe friends who have been dead these twenty years, are more prefent to me now, than these I fee daily. You, dear Sir, are one of the former fort to me in all refpects, but that we can, yet, correfpond together. I don't know whether 'tis not more vexatious, to know we are both in one world, without any further intercourfe. Adieu. I can fay no more, I feel fo much: Let me drop into common things-Lord Mafham has just married his fon. Mr. Lewis has juft buried his wife. Lord Oxford wept over your letter in pure kindnefs. Mrs. B. fighs more for you, than for the lofs of youth. She fays, fhe will be agreeable many years hence, for the has learn'd that fecret from fome receipts of your writing.-Adieu.

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LET

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LETTER LXXXV.

March 23, 1736-7.

HO' you were never to write to me, yet what you defired in your last, that I would write often to you, would be a very easy task; for every day I talk with you, and of you, in my heart; and I need only fet down what that is thinking of. The nearer I find myself verging to that period of life which is to be labour and forrow, the more I prop myself upon those few fupports that are left me. People in this ftate are like props indeed, they cannot ftand alone, but two or more of them can ftand, leaning and bearing upon one another. I with you and I might pafs this part of life together. My only neceffary care is at an end. I am now my own master too much; my house is too large; my gardens furnish too much wood and provifion for my ufe. My feryants are fenfible and tender of me; they have intermarried, and are become rather low friends than fervants and to all those that I fee here with pleafure, they take a pleasure in being useful. I conclude this is your cafe too in your domestic life, and I fometimes think of your old houfe-keeper as my nurfe; tho' I tremble at the fea, which only divides us. As your fears are not fo great as mine, and, I firmly hope, your ftrength still much greater, is it utterly impoffible, it might once more be fome pleasure to you to fee England? My fole motive in propofing France to meet in, was the narrowness of the paffage by fea from hence, the Phyficians having told me the weakness of my breaft, &c. is fuch, as a fea-fickness might indanger my life. Tho' one or two of our friends are gone, fince you faw your native country, there remain a few

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more who will last fo till death, and who, I cannot but hope, have an attractive power to draw you back to a Country, which cannot quite be funk or enflaved, while fuch fpirits remain. And let me tell you, there are a few more of the fame fpirit, who would awaken all your old Ideas, and revive your hopes of her future recovery and Virtue. These look up to you with reverence, and would be animated by the fight of him at whose foul they have taken fire, in his writings, and deriv'd from thence as much Love of their fpecies as is confiftent with a contempt for the knaves of it.

I could never be weary, except at the eyes, of writing to you; but my real reason (and a ftrong one it is) for doing it fo seldom, is Fear; Fear of a very great and experienced evil, that of my letters being kept by the partiality of friends, and paffing into the hands, and malice of enemies; who publifh them with all their Imperfections on their head; fo that I write not on the common terms of honest men.

Would to God you would come over with Lord Orrery, whofe care of you in the voyage I could fo certainly depend on; and bring with you your old house-keeper and two or three fervants. I have room for all, a heart for all, and (think what you will) a fortune for all. We could, were we together, contrive to make our last days easy, and leave fome fort of Monument, what Friends two Wits could be in spite of all the fools in the world, Adieu,

LET

LETTER LXXXVI

From Dr. SWIFT.

Dublin, May 31, 1737.

IT is true, I owe you fome letters, but it has

to pay you.

pleafed God, that I have not been in a condition When you fhall be at my age, perhaps you may lie under the fame disability to your prefent or future friends. But my age is not my difability, for I can walk fix or feven miles, and ride a dozen. But I am deaf for two months together; this deafness unqualifies me for all company, except a few friends with counter-tenor voices, whom I can call names, if they do not speak loud enough for my ears. It is this evil that hath hindered me from venturing to the Bath, and to Twickenham; for deafnefs being not a frequent disorder, hath no allowance given it; and the fcurvy figure a man affected that way makes in company, is utterly insupportable.

It was I began with the petition to you of Orna me, and now you come like an unfair merchant, to charge me with being in your debt; which by your way of reckoning I muft always be, for yours are always guineas, and mine farthings; and yet I have a pretence to quarrel with you, because I am not at the head of any one of your Epiftles. I am often wondring how you come to excel all mortals on the fubject of Morality, even in the poetical way; and fhould have wondred more, if Nature and Education had not made you a profeffor of it from your infancy. "All the letters I can "find of yours, I have faftened in a folio cover, " and the rest in bundles endors'd: But, by read"ing their dates, I find a chafm of fix years, of P 4

"which

which I can find no copies; and yet I keep "them with all poffible care: But, I have been "forced, on three or four occafions, to fend all

my papers to fome friends; yet those papers "were all fent fealed in bundles, to fome faithful "friends; however, what I have are not much "above fixty." I found nothing in any one of them to be left out: None of them have any thing to do with Party, of which you are the cleareft of all men by your Religion, and the whole tenour of your life; while I am raging every moment against the Corruption of both kingdoms, efpecially of this; fuch is my weakness.

I have read your Epiftle of Horace to Auguftus: it I was fent me in the English Edition, as foon aș it could come. They are printing it in a small octavo. The curious are looking out, fome for flattery, fome for Ironies in it; the four folks think they have found out fome: But your admirers here, I mean every man of taste, affect to be certain, that the Profeffion of friendship to Me in the fame poem, will not fuffer you to be thought a Flatterer. My happiness is that you are too far engaged, and in fpite of you the ages to come will celebrate me, and know you were a friend who loved and esteemed me, although I dyed the object of Court and Party hatred.

Pray, who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the Epic Poem called Leonidas, which is re-printing here, and hath great vogue? We have frequently good Poems of late from London. I have juft read one upon Converfation, and two or three others. But the croud do not incumber you, who, like the Orator or Preacher, ftand aloft, and are feen above the reft, more than the whole affembly below.

I am able to write no more; and this is my third endeavour, which is too weak to finish the

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