LETTER VII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT.

AM not fo lazy as Pope, and therefore you muft not expect from me the fame indulgence to Lazinefs; in defending his own cause he pleads yours, and becomes your advocate while he appeals to you as his Judge: You will do the fame on your part; and I, and the rest of your common Friends, shall have great juftice to expect from two fuch righteous Tribunals: You refemble perfectly the two Alehouse-keepers in Holland, who were at the fame time Burgomasters of the Town, and taxed one another's Bills alternately. I declare beforehand I will not ftand to the award ; my Title to your Friendship is good, and wants neither Deeds nor Writings to confirm it: but annual Acknowledgments at least are neceffary to preserve it and I begin to fufpect by your defrauding me of them, that you hope in time to difpute it, and to urge Prefcription against me. I would not fay one word to you about myself (fince it is a fubject on which you appear to have no curiofity) was it not to try how far the contraft between Pope's Fortune and manner of life, and mine, may be carried.

I have been, then, infinitely more uniform and lefs diffipated than when you knew me and cared for me. That Love which I ufed

to scatter with some profufion, among the whole female kind, has been these many years devoted to one object. A great many misfortunes (for fo they are called, though fometimes very improperly) and a retirement from the world, have made that just and nice discrimination between my Acquaintance and my Friends, which we have feldom fagacity enough to make for ourselves; those infects of various hues, which used to hum and buz about me while I stood in the funshine, have disappeared fince I lived in the fhade. No man comes to a Hermitage but for the fake of the Hermit; a few philofophical Friends come often to mine, and they are fuch as you would be glad to live with, if a dull climate and duller company have not altered you extreamely from what you were nine years ago.

The hoarse voice of Party was never heard in this quiet place; Gazettes and Pamphlets are banished from it; and if the Lucubrations of Ifaac Bickerstaff be admitted, this diftinction is owing to fome ftrokes by which it is judged that this illustrious Philofopher, had (like the Indian Fohu, the Grecian Pythagoras, the Perfian Zoroafter, and others his Precurfors among the Zabians, Magians, and the Egyptian Seers) both his outward and his inward Doctrine, and that he was of no fide at the bottom. When I am there, I forget I ever was of any party my felf; nay, I am often so happily abforbed by the abstracted reason of things, that I am ready

to

to imagine there never was any fuch monster as Party. Alas, I am foon awakened from that pleafing dream by the Greek and Roman Hiftorians, by Guicciardin, by Machiavel, and by Thuanus for I have vowed to read no Hiftory of our own country, until that * body of it which you promise to finish, appears.

I am under no apprehenfions that a glut of study and retirement fhould caft me back into the hurry of the world; on the contrary, the fingle regret which I ever feel, is that I fell fo late into this courfe of life; my Philofophy grows confirmed by habit, and if you and I meet again, I will extort this approbation from you. Jam non confilio bonus, fed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere poffim, fed nifi recte facere non poffim. The little incivilities I have met with from oppofite fetts of people, have been so far from rendering me violent or four to any, that I think myself obliged to them all: Some have cured me of my fears, by fhewing me how impotent the malice of the world. is ; others have cured me of my hopes, by shewing how precarious popular friendships are; all have cured me of furprize. In driving me D 3

out

* The Hiftory of the four laft Years of Queen ANNE'S Reign.

I am not now become virtuous through Choice; but am brought to that Habit of Mind, that I cannot only act rightly, but cannot otherwife than act rightly.

out of Party, they have driven me out of curfed company; and in ftripping me of Titles and Rank and Eftate, and fuch trinkets, which every man that will may fpare, they have given me that which no man can be happy without.

Reflection and habit have rendered the world fo indifferent to me, that I am neither afflicted nor rejoiced, angry nor pleafed at what happens in it, any farther than perfonal friendships interested me in the affairs of it, and this principle extends my cares but a little way. Per fect Tranquility is the general tenour of my life: good digeftions, ferene weather, and fome other mechanic springs, wind me above it now and then, but I never fall below it; I am fometimes gay, but I am never fad. I have gained new friends, and have loft fome old ones; my acquifitions of this kind give me a good deal of pleasure: because they have not been made lightly; I know no vows fo folemn as those of friendship, and therefore a pretty long noviciate of acquaintance should methinks precede them : My loffes of this kind give me but little trouble, I contribute nothing to them, and a friend who breaks with me unjustly, is not worth preferving. As foon as I leave this Town (which will be in a few days) I shall fall back into that course of life, which keeps knaves and fools at a great distance from me: I have an averfion to them both, but in the ordinary course of life I think I can bear the fenfible knave better than

the

the fool: One must indeed with the former be in fome or other of the attitudes of those wooden men whom I have seen before a swordcutler's fhop in Germany; but even in these constrained poftures the witty rafcal will divert me; and he that diverts me does me a great deal of good, and lays me under an obligation to him, which I am not obliged to pay him in another coin: The Fool obliges me to be almost as much upon my guard as the knave, and he makes me no amends; he numbs me like the Torpor, or he teizes me like the Fly. This is the picture of an old Friend, and more like him than that will be which you once afked, and which he will fend if you, you continue still to defire it-Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee intirely, make an effort, and love me on with all mine.

N. B. The foregoing Letter of the Lord Bolingbroke, was printed at the End of the Quarto Edition, very faulty (as for inftance, Arabians for Zabians, Egyptian Seres for Seers, &c.) occafioned by its being taken from Curl's ftolen copy only: The Original having been fince recovered among Dr. Swift's Papers, it is now firft correctly published.