I LETTER XXVIII. Mr. POPE to Dr. SwIFT. March 23, 1727-8. Send you a very old thing, a paper printed in Boston in New-England, wherein you'll find a real perfon, a member of their Parliament, of the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of that Traveller has travell'd thither, it has travell❜d very quick, to have folks chriften'd already by the name of the fuppofed Author. But if you object that no child fo lately chriften'd could be arrived at years of maturity to be elected into parliament, I reply (to folve the Riddle) that the perfon is an Anabaptift, and not chriften'd till full age, which fets all right. However it be, the accident is very fingular, that these two names fhould be united. Mr. Gay's Opera has acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the whole feafon. So he has more than a fence about his thousand pounds: he'll foon be thinking of a fence about his two thoufand. Shall no one of us live as we would with each other to live? Shall he have no fure annuity, you no fettlement on this fide, and I no profpect of getting to you on the other? This world is made for Cæfar-as Cato faid, for ambitious, false, or flattering people to domineer in: Nay they would would not, by their good will, leave us our very books, thoughts, or words in quiet. I despise the world yet, I affure you, more than either Gay or you, and the Court more than all the reft of the world. As for thofe Scriblers for whom you apprehend I would suppress my Dulnefs, (which by the way for the future you are to call by a more pompous name, The Dunciad) how much that neft of Hornets are my regard, will eafily appear to you when you read the Treatife of the Bathos. At all adventures, yours and my name shall ftand linked as friends to pofterity, both in verfe and profe, and (as Tully calls it) in *confuetudine Studiorum. Would to God our perfons could but as well, and as furely, be infeparable! I find my other Tyes dropping from me, fome worn off, fome torn off, others relaxing daily: My greateft, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, Time is shaking every moment, and it now hangs but by a thread! I am many years the older, for living so much with one fo old; much the more helpless, for having been fo long help'd and tended by her; much the more confiderate and tender, for a daily commerce, with one who requir'd me justly to be both to her; and confequently the more melancholy and thoughtful; and the lefs fit for others, who want only in a companion or a friend, to be amused or entertained. My conftitution too has had its fhare of decay, as H 3 well * In the familiarity of our Studies. well as my fpirits, and I am as much in the decline at forty as you at fixty. I believe we fhould be fit to live together, cou'd I get a little more health, which might make me not quite infupportable: Your Deafness would agree with my Dulnefs; you would not want me to fpeak when you could not hear; But God forbid you fhould be as deftitute of the focial comforts of life, as I muft when I lofe my mother or that ever you should lose your more useful acquaintance fo utterly, as to turn your thoughts to fuch a broken reed as I am, who could fo ill fupply your wants. I am extremely troubled at the returns of your deafness; you cannot be too particular in the accounts of your health to me; every thing you do or fay in this kind obliges me, nay delights me, to fee the justice you do me in thinking me concern'd in all your concerns, fo that tho' the pleasantest thing you can tell me be that you are better or easier next to that it pleases me that you make me the perfon you would complain to. ; As the obtaining the love of valuable men is the happiest end I know of this life, fo the next felicity is to get rid of fools and scoundrels which I can't but own to you was one Part of my design in falling upon thefe Authors, whofe incapacity is not greater than their infincerity, and of whom I have always found (if I may quote myself) That each bad Author is as bad a Friend. This This Poem will rid me of those infects. *Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii, I mean than my Iliad; and I call it Nefcio Adieu. I LETTER XXIX, Dr. SWIFT to Mr. POPE. Dublin, May 10, 1728. Have with great pleasure shewn the NewEngland News-paper with the two names Jonathan Gulliver, and I remember Mr. Fortescue fent you an account from the affizes, of one Lemuel Gulliver, who had a Cause there, and loft it on his ill reputation of being a liar; and these are not the only obfervations I have made upon odd ftrange accidents in trifles, which in things of great importance would have been matter for Hiftorians. Mr. Gay's Opera hath been acted here twenty times, and my Lord Lieutenant telleth me it is very well H 4 performed; * Ye Romans, yield; ye Grecians, yield the Prize, See fomething greater than an İliad rife ! + Lord Carteret, performed; he hath feen it often, and approveth it much. You give a most melancholy account of yourfelf, and which I do not approve. I reckon that a Man fubject like us to bodily infirmities, fhould only occafionally converfe with great people, notwithstanding all their good qualities, eafineffes, and kindneffes. There is another race which I prefer before them, as Beef and Mutton for conftant dyet before Partridges : I mean a middle kind, both for understanding and fortune, who are perfectly eafy, never impertinent, complying in every thing, ready to do a hundred little offices that you and I may often want, who dine and fit with me five times for once that I go to them, and whom I can tell without offence, that I am otherwife engaged at prefent. This you cannot expect from any of thofe that either you, or I, or both, are acquainted with on your fide; who are only fit for our healthy feafons, and have much bufinefs of their own. God forbid I fhould condemn you to Ireland (* Quanquam O!) and for England I defpair; and indeed a change of affairs would come too late at my feafon of life, and might probably produce nothing on my behalf, You have kept Mrs. Pope longer, and have had her care beyond, what from nature you could expect; not but her lofs will be very fenfible, whenever it shall happen. I fay one thing, that both summers * And yet I wish! and |