rather than pain. But, to convince you it is pretty well, it has done fome mifchief 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 badhealth, he 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 vexed 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 must fettle in Ireland, pray make me know no more of them, and I forgive you this

one.

LETTER XXIV.

08. 2. 1727.

T is a perfect trouble to me to write to you; and your kind letter left for me at Mr. Gay's affect-ed me fo much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what to fay to you; I only feel that I with you well in every circumstance of life; that it is 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 cafe 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

Ff. 3

find:

find you could think yourself easier in any houfe than in mine; though at the fame time I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it seemed 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 last 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 complied fo unwillingly in my life with any friend as with you, in ftaying fo entirely from you; nor could I have had the conftancy to do it, if you had not promised, that before you went we fhould meet, and you would fend to us all to come. I have given your remembrances to those you mention in yours. We are quite forry for you, I mean for ourselves 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 bere we have nothing fo good. Adieu for this time. May you find every friend you go to as pleafed and happy, as every friend you went from is forry and troubled.

Yours, &c.

I

LETTER

I

my

LETTER XXV.

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 home. I have there a large house, and servants 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 main-tenance, 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 best and kindest friend in the world, and I know no body alive or dead to whom I am fo much obliged: and if you ever made me angry, it was for your too much care about me. I have often wifhed, that God Almighty would be fo easy to the weaknefs 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 schemes. This wildnefs 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 giddinefs 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 fhould be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and

kindness.

or no.

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 The cafe would be quite otherwise if you were with me; you could refuse to fee any body; and here is a large houfe, 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. myfelf with accounts; fo that I am very well qualified to be a Lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray God continue and increase Mr. Congreve's amendment; though he does not deferve it like you, having been too lavifh of that health which nature gave him.

I hope my Whitehall landlord is nearer to a place. than when I left him; as the preacher faid, "the day of judgement was nearer than ever it had "been before."

Pray God fend you health, det falutem, det opes; animam aquam tibi ipfe parabis. You fee Horace wifhed for money, as well as health; and I would hold a crown he kept a coach; and I fhall never be a friend to the court till you do so too.

Yours, &c.

2

LETTER

TH

LETTER XXVI.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Oct. 30. 1727.

HE firft letter I writ after my landing was to Mr. Gay; but it would have been wifer to direct it to Tonfon or Lintot, to whom I believe his lodgings are better known than to the runners of the poft-office. In that letter you will find what a quick change I made in feven days from London to the deanery, through many nations and languages unknown to the civilized world. And I have often reflected, in how few hours, with a fwift horfe, or a strong gale, a man may come among a people as unknown to him as the antipodes. If I did not know you more by your conversation and kindness than by your letter, I might be bafe enough to fufpect; that in point of friendship, you acted like fome philofophers who writ much better upon virtue than they practised it. In anfwer, I can only fwear, that you have taught me to dream, which I had not done in twelve years further than by inexpreffible nonfenfe; but now I can every night diftinctly fee Twickenham, and the grotte, and Dawley, and many other et ceteras, and it is but three nights fince I beat Mrs. Pope. I must needs confels, that the pleafure I take in thinking on you, is very much leffened by the pain I am in about your health. You pay dearly for the great talents God hath given you; and for the confequences of them, in the esteem and distinction you receive from mankind, unless you can provide a tolerable stock of health; in which purfuit I cannot much commend your conduct, but rather intreat you would mend