I would have you in Ireland when you fhall be at your own difpofal, is that you may be mafter of two or three years revenues, provilae frugis in annos copia, fo as not to be pinch'd in the leaft when years increafe, and perhaps your health impairs And when this kingdom is utterly at an end, you may fupport me for the few years I fhall happen to live; and who knows but you may pay me exorbitant intereft for the fpoonful of wine, and scraps of a chicken it will coft me to feed you ? I am confident have too much reafon to complain of ingratitude; for I never yet knew any perfon, one tenth part fo heartily difpofed as you are, to do good offices to others, without the leaft private view.

you

Was it a gafconade to pleafe me, that you faid your fortune was increased icol. a year fince I left you ? you should have told me how. Thofe fubfidia fenectuti are extremely defirable, if they could be got with juftice, and without avarice; of which vice tho' I cannot charge myfelf yet, nor feel any approaches towards it, yet no ufurer more wishes to be richer (or rather to be furer of his rents.) But I am not half fo moderate as you, for I declare I cannot live eafily under double to what you are satisfied with.

I hope Mr. Gay will keep his 3000 7. and live on the intereft without decreafing the principal one penny; but I do not like your feldom feeing him. I hope he is grown more difengaged from his intentnefs on his own affairs, which I ever difliked, and is quite the reverfe to you, unlefs you are a very dexterous difguifer. I defire my humble fervice to Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurft, and particularly to Mrs. B-, but to no Lady at Court. God bless you for being a greater Dupe than I: I love that character too myself, but I want your charity.

Adieu.

Τ

LETTER XXXIX.

Oct. 9, 1729. IT pleafes me that you received my books at laft: but you have never once told me if you approve the whole, or difapprove not of fome parts of the Commentary, etc. It was my principal aim in the entire work to perpetuate the friendship between us, and to fhew that the friends or the enemies of the one were the friends or enemies of the other: If in any particular, any thing be ftated or mentioned in Ss 2

a dif..

a different manner from what you like, pray tell me freely, that the new editions now coming out here may have it rectify'd. You'll find the octavo rather more correct than the quarto, with fome additions to the Notes and Epigrams caft in, which I wifh had been increas'd by your acquaintance in Ireland. I rejoice in hearing that Drapiers-Hill, is to emulate Parnaffus; I fear the country about it is as much impoverished. I truly fhare in all that troubles you, and with you remov'd from a fcene of diftreis, which I know works your compaffionate temper too ftrongly. But if we are not to fee you here, I believe I fhall once in my life fee you there. You think more for me and about me, than any friend I have, and you think better for me. Perhaps you'll not be contented, tho' I am, that the additional 100% a year is only for my life. *My mother is yet living, and I thank God for it: fhe will rever be troubletome to me, if she be not fo to herself: but a mel ncholy obje&t it is, to observe the gradual decays 'oth of body and mind, in a perfon to whom one is tied by the links of both. I can't tell whether her death itfelf would be to afflicting.

:

You are too careful of my worldly affairs; I am rich enough, and I can afford to give away a 100l. a year, Don't be angry I will not live to be very old; I have Revelations to the contrary. I would not crawl upon the earth without doing a little good when I have a mind to do it I will enjoy the pleasure of what I give, by giving it alive, and feeing another enjoy it. When I die I fhould be atham'd to leave enough to build me a monument, if there were a wanting friend above ground,

Mr. Gay affures me his 3oco!, is kept entire and facred; he feems to languifh after a line from you, and complains tenderly. Lord Bolingbroke has told me ten times over he was going to write to you. Has he, or not? The Dr. is unalterable, both in friendship and Quadrille his wife has been very near death last week: his two brothers bur ried their wives within thefe fix weeks. Gay is fixty miles off, and has been fo all this fummer with the Duke and Duchefs of Queensbury. He is the fame man: So is every one here that you know: mankind is unamendable. Optimus ille qui minimus urgetur-Poor Mrs. * is like the reft, The cries at the thorn in her foot, but will fuffer nobody to pull it out. The Court-lady I have a good opinion of, yet I have treated her more negligently than you wou'd do, because you like to fee the infide of a court, which I do not. I have feen her but twice. You have a defper

rate

rate hand at dafhing out a character by great ftrokes, and at the fame time a delicate one at fine touches. God forbid you fhould draw mine, if I were confcious of any guilt: But if I were confcious only of folly, God fend it! for as nobody can detect a great fault fo well as you, nobody would fo well hide a fmall one. But after all, that Lady means to do good, and does no harm, which is a vaft deal for a Courtier. I can affure you that Lord Peterborow always fpeaks kindly of you, and certainly has as great a mind to be your friend as any one. I must throw away my pen; it cannot, it will never tell you, what I inwardly am to you. Quod nequeo monftrare, et fentio tantum.

1

LETTER XL.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT.

Bruffels, Sept. 27, 1729.

Have brought your French acquaintance thus far on her way into her own country, and confiderably better in health than fhe was when she went to Aix. I begin to entertain hopes that fhe will recover fuch a degree of health as may render old age fupportable. Both of us have closed the tenth Luftre, and it is high time to determine how we fhall play the laft act of the Farce. Might not my life be entituled much more properly a What d'ye call-it than a Farce? fome Comedy, a great deal of Tragedy, and the whole interfperfed with fcenes of Harlequin, Scaramouch, and Dr. Baloardo, the prototype of your Hero.-I used to think fometimes formerly of old age and of death; enough to prepare my mind; not enough to anticipate forrow, to dash the joys of youth, and to be all my life a dying. I find the benefit of this practice now, and find it more as I proceed on my journey: little regret when I look backwards, little apprehenfion when I look forward. You complain grievoufly of your fituation in Ireland; I would complain of mine too in England: but I will not, nay, I ought not; for I find by long experience that I can be unfortunate, without being unhappy. I do not approve your joining together the figure of living, and the pleasure of giving, though your old prating friend Montagne does fomething like it in one of his Rhaplodies. To tell you my reasons would be to write an Effay, and I fhall hardly have time to write a Letter; but if you will come over,

and

and live with Pope and me, I'll fhew you in an inftant why thofe two things fhould not aller de pair, and that forced retrenchments on both may be made, without making us even uneafy. You know that I am too expenfive, and all mankind knows that I have been cruelly plundered; and yet I feel in my mind the power of defcending without anxiety two or three ftages more. In fhort (Mr. Dean) if you will come to a certain farm in Middlefex, you fhall find that I can live frugally without growling at the world, or being peevish with those whom fortune has appointed to eat my bread, inftead of appointing me to eat theirs: and yet I have naturally as little difpofition to frugality as any man alive. You fay you are no philofopher, and I think you are in the right to diflike a word which is so often abufed; but I am fure you like to follow reafon, not cuftom, (which is fometimes the reafon and oftener the caprice of others, of the mob of the world). Now to be fure of doing this, you must wear your philofophical fpectacles ás conftantly as the Spaniards used to wear theirs. You muft make them part of your drefs, and fooner part with your broad-brimm'd beaver, your gown, your scarf, or even that emblematical veftment your furplice. Thro' this medium you will fee few things to be vexed at, few perfons to be angry at; and yet there will frequently be things which we ought to with altered, and perfons whom we ought to with hanged.

In your letter to Pope, you agree that a regard for Fame becomes a man more towards his Exit, than at his entrance into life; and yet you confefs, that the longer you live, the more you grow indifferent about it. Your fentiment is true and natural; your reasoning, I am afraid, is not fo upon this occafion Prudence will make us defire Fame, becaufe it gives us many real and great advantages in all the affairs of life. Fame is the wife man's means; his ends are his own good, and the good of fociety. You Poets and Orators have inverted this order; you propofe Fame as the end, and good, or at leaft great actions, as the means. You go further: You teach our felf-love to anticipate the applaufe which we fuppofe will be paid by pofterity to our names; and with idle notions of immorta lity you turn other heads befides your own; I am afraid this may have done fome harm in the world.

Fame is an object which men purfue fuccefsfully by various and even contrary courses. Your doctrine leads them to look on this end as effential, and on the means as indifferent; fo that Fabricius and Craffus, Cato and Ca

far

far preffed forward to the fame goal. After all perhaps it may appear, from a confideration of the depravity of mankind, that you could do no better, nor keep up virtue in the world without calling this paffion or this direction of felf-love in to your aid: Tacitus has crowded this excufe for you, according to his manner, into a maxim, Contemptu famae, contemni virtutes. But now whether we confider Fame as an useful inftrument in all the occurrences of private and public life, or whether we confider it as the caufe of that pleasure which our felf-love is fo fond of; methinks our entrance into life, or (to speak more properly) our youth, not our old age, is the feafon when we ought to defire it moft, and therefore when it is moft becoming, to defire it with ardor. If it is ufeful, it is to be defired moft when we have, or may hope to have a long scene of action open before us: Towards our exit, this fcene of action is or fhould be closed; and then, methinks, it is unbecoming to grow fonder of a thing which we have no longer occafion for. If it is pleafant, the fooner we are in poffeffion of fame the longer we fhall enjoy this pleafure. When it is acquired early in life it may tickle us on till old age; but when it is acquired late, the fenfation of pleasure will be more faint, and mingled with the regret of our not having tasted it sooner.

From my Farm, Oct. 5.

firft en

I am here; I have feen Pope, and one of my quiries was after you. He tells me a'thing I am forry to hear: You are building, it feems, on a piece of land you have acquired for that purpose, in fome county of Íreland. Tho' I have built in a part of the world, which I prefer very little to that where you have been thrown and confined by our ill-fortune and yours, yet I am forry you do the fame thing. I have repented a thousand times of my refolution, and I hope you will repent of yours before it is executed. Adieu, my old and worthy friend; may the phyfical evils of life fall as eafily upon you, as ever. they did on any man who lived to be old; and may the moral evils which furround us, make as little impreffion on you, as they ought to make on one who has fuch fuperior fenfe to eftimate things by, and fo much virtue to wrap himself up in.

My wife defires not to be forgotten by you; fhe's faithfully your fervant, and zealously your admirer. She will be concerned and disappointed not to find you in this island

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