henceforth to handle only ferious fubjects, nifi quid tu, docte Trebati, Diffentis.

Your's, &c.

LETTER XXII.

March 8, 1726-7.

R. Stopford will be the bearer of this letter,

M for whofe acquaintance I am, among many

other favours, obliged to you: and I think the ac quaintance of fo valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the least obligations.

Our Mifcellany 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, unimportant, natural, eafy manner; diverting others juft as we diverted our+ felves. The third volume confifts of Verfes, but I would chufe to print none but such as have fome peculiarity, and may be diftinguish'd for ours, from other writers. There's no end of making Books, Solomon faid, and above all of making Miscella+ nies, which all men can make. For unless there be a character in every piece, like the mark of the Elect, I fhould not care to be one of the Twelve thousand figned.

You receiv'd, I hope, fome commendatory verfes from a Horfe and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic Epiftle of Mrs. Gulliver. The Book feller 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

You fee how much like a Poet I write, and yet if you were with us, you'd be deep in Politics. People are very warm, and very angry, very little to 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 Ipirits about me.

P

I am rather better than I ufe to be at this feafon, 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 mifchief already, and just been firong enough to cut the other hand, while it was aiming to prune a fruit-trec,

Lady Bolingbroke has writ you a long, lively letter, which will attend this, "She has very bad health, he very good. Lord Peterborow has writ twice to you we fancy fome letters have been intercepted, or loft by accident.. About ten thoufand things I want to tell you: I wish you were as ime patient to hear them, for if fo, you would, you must come early this fpring. Adieu. Let me have a line from you. I am vex'd at lofing Mr..Stop ford as foon as I knew him: but I thank God I have known him no longer. If every man one begins to value must fettle in Ireland, pray make me know no more of 'em, and I forgive you this way to also

one.

LET

IT

LETTER XXIII.

Oct. 2, 1727.

T is a perfect trouble to me to write to you, and your kind letter left for me at Mr. Gay's affected me fo much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what to fay to you; I only feel that I wifh you well in every circumftance 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 themselves fo utterly impotent to do any good, or give any ease to those who deferve moft from us. I would very fain know, as soon 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 yourself easier in any house than in mine, tho' at the fame time I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it feem'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 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 laft time I faw you, you affured me you would not leave us this whole winter, unless your health grew better, 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 thou'd meet, and you would

I

would fend to us all to come. I have given your remembrances to thofe you mention in yours: we are quite forry for you, I mean for ourselves. I hope, as you do, that we fhall meet in a more durable and more fatisfactory state; but the lefs fure I am of that, the more I would indulge it in this. We are to believe, we fhall have fomething better than even a friend, there, but certainly here we have nothing fo good. 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.

Your's, &c.

I

LETTER XXIV.

From Dr. SwIFT.

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 there 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 beft to return to Ireland, rather than go to any diftant place in England. Here is my maintainance, and here my convenience. If it pleafes 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 kindest 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 your too much care about me. I have often wifh'd that God almighty would be fo eafy to the VOL. IX. weakness

for

F

weakness of mankind, as to let old friends be acquainted in another state; and if I were to write an Utopia for heaven, that would be one of my fchemes. This wildness you must allow for, because I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be fick here, without the vexation of making my friends uneafy; yet my giddiness alone would not have done, if that unfociable comfortless deafness had not quite tired me. And I believe I fhould 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, and 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 reason 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 myfelf with accompts; fo that I am very well qualified to be a Lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray