tion of the Dunciad, with fome additional notes and epigrams, fhall be fent you, if I know any opportunity if they reprint it with you, let them by all means follow that octavo edition. The Drapier's letters are again printed here, very laudably as to paper, print, etc. for you know I difapprove Irish politics, (as my Commentator tells you) being a ftrong and jealous subject of England. The Lady you mention, you ought not complain of for not acknowledging your prefent; fhe having lately received a much richer prefent from Mr. Knight of the S. Sea; and you are fenfible fhe cannot ever return it to one in the condition of an out-law. It's certain, as he can never expect any favour*, his motive muft be wholly difinterested. Will not this reflection make you blufh? Your continual deplorings of Ireland, make me with you were here long enough to forget thofe fcenes that fo afflict you: I am only in fear if you were, you would grow fuch a patriot here too, as not to be quite at eafe, for your love of old England. It is very poffible, your journey, in the time I compute, might exactly tally with my intended one to you; and if you muft foon again go back, you would not be unattended. For the poor woman decays perceptibly every week; and the winter may too probably put an end to a very long, and a very irreproachable life. My conftant attendance on her does indeed affect my mind very much, and leffen extremely my defires of long life; fince I fee the beft that can come of it is a miferable benediction. I look upon myfelf to be many years older in two years fince you faw me: The natural imbecillity of my body, join'd now to this acquir'd old age of the mind, makes me at leaft as old as you, and we are the fitter to crawl down the hill together: I only defire I may be able to keep pace with you. My first friendship at fixteen, was contracted with a man of feventy, and I found him not grave enough or confiftent enough for me, tho' we lived well to his death. I fpeak of old Mr. Wycherley; fome letters of whom (by the by) and of mine, the Bookfellers have got and printed, not without the concurrence of a noble friend of mine and yours t. I don't much approve of it; though there is nothing for me to be afham'd of, because I will not be afham'd of any thing I do not do myself, or of any thing that is not immoral but merely

He was mistaken in this. Mr. Knight was par lonel, and came home in the year 1742.

See the occafion, in the fecond and third Paragraphs of the Preface to the firft Volume of Letters,

dull

way

dull (as for inftance, if they printed this letter I am now writing, which they eafily may, if the underlings at the Poft-office pleafe to take a copy of it.) I admire on this confideration, your fending your laft to me quite open, without a feal, wafer, or any closure whatever, manifefting the utter openness of the writer. I would do the fame by this, but fear it would look like affectation to send two letters fo together.-I will fully reprefent to our friend (and, I doubt not, it will touch his heart) what you fo feelingly fet forth as to the badnefs of your Burgundy, etc. He is an extreme honeft man, and indeed ought to be fo, confidering how very indifcreet and unreserved ke is: But I do not approve this part of his character, and will never join with him in any of his idleneffes in the of wit. You know my maxim to keep as clear of all offence, as I am clear of all intereft in either party. I was once difpleafed before at you, for complaining to Mr. of my not having a penfion, and am fo again at your naming it to a certain Lord. I have given proof in the course of my whole life, (from the time when I was in the friendthip of Lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Craggs, even to this when I am civilly treated by Sir R. Walpole) that I never thought myself fo warm in any Party's caufe as to deferve their money; and therefore would never have accepted it : But give me leave to tell you, that of all mankind the two perfons I would leaft have accepted any favour from, are thofe very two, to whom you have unluckily spoken of it. I defire you to take off any impreffions which that dialogue may have left on his Lordship's mind, as if I ever had any thought of being beholden to him, or any other, in that way. And yet, you know I am no enemy to the prefent Conftitution; I believe, as fincere a wellwifher to it, nay even to the church establish'd, as any Minifter in, or out of employment whatever; or any Bishop of England or Ireland. Yet am I of the Religion of Erafmus, a Catholic; fo I live, fo I fhall die; and hope one day to meet you, Bishop Atterbury, the younger Craggs, Dr. Garth, Dean Berkeley, and Mr. Hutchenfon, in that place, To which God of his infinite mercy bring us, and every body.

Lord B's answer to your letter I have juft received, and join it to this packet. The work he fpeaks of with fuch abundant partiality, is a fyftem of Ethics in the Horatian way.

LETTER

LETTER XLV.

April 14, 1730.

T

HIS is a letter extraordinary, to do and fay nothing but to recommend to you (as a Clergyman, and a charitable one) a pious and a good work, and for a good and honeft man: Moreover he is above feventy, and poor, which you might think included in the word honeft. I fhall think it a kindnefs done myfelf, if you can propagate Mr. Weftley's fubfcription for his Commentary on Job, among your Divines, (Bishops excepted, of whom there is no hope) and among fuch as are believers, or readers of Scripture. Even the curious may find fomething to please them, if they fcorn to be edified. It has been the labour of eight years of this learned man's life; I call him what he is, a learned man, and I engage you will approve his profe more than you formerly could his poetry. Lord Bolingbroke is a favourer of it, and allows you to do your beft to ferve an old Tory, and a sufferer for the Church of England, tho' you are a Whig, as I

am.

We have here fome verfes in your name, which I am angry at. Sure you wou'd not ufe me fo ill as to flatter me I therefore think it is fone other weak Irishman.

P. S. I did not take the pen out of Pope's hands, I proteft to you. But fince he will not fill the remainder of the page, I think I may without offence. I feek no epiftolary fame, but am a good deal pleafed to think that it will be known hereafter that you and I lived in the most friendly intimacy together -Pliny writ his letters for the public, fo did Seneca, fo did Balfac, Voiture, etc. Tully did not, and therefore thefe give us more pleasure than any which have come down to us from antiquity. When we read them, we pry into a fecret which was intended to be kept from us. That is a pleasure. We fee Cato, and Brutus, and Pompey, and others, fuch as they really were, and not fuch as the gaping multitude of their own age took them to be, or as Hiftorians and Poets have reprefented them to ours. That is another pleasure. I remember to have feen a proceffion at Aix-la-Chapelle, 'wherein an image of Charlemagne is carried on the shoulders of a man, who is hid by the long robe of the imperial Saint. Follow him into the veftry, you fee the bearer flip

from

from under the robe, and the gigantic figure dwindles into an image of the ordinary fize, and is fet by among other lumber I agree much with Pope, that our climate is rather better than that you are in, and perhaps your public fpirit would be lefs grieved, or oftener comforted, here than there. Come to us therefore on a vifit at leaft. It will not be the fault of feveral perfons here, if you do not come to live with us. But great good-will and little power produce fuch flow and feeble effects as can be acceptable to Heaven alone, and heavenly men. I know you will be angry with me, if I fay nothing to you of a poor woman, who is ftill on the other fide of the water in a moft languifhing state of health. If the regains ftrength enough to come over (and fhe is better within a few weeks) I fhall nurfe her in this farm with all the care and tenderness poffible. If fhe does not, I muft pay her the last duty of friendship wherever the is, tho' I break thro' the whole plan of life which I have form'd in my mind. Adieu. I am most faithfully and affectionately yours..

LETTER LXVI.

Lord B. to Dr. SwIFT.

Jan. 1730-31.

Begin my letter by telling you that my wife has been returned from abroad about a month, and that her health, though feeble and precarious, is better than it has been these two years. She is much your fervant, and as fhe has been her own phyfician with fome fuccefs, imagines the could be yours with the fame. Would to God you was within her reach. She would, I believe, prescribe a great deal of the medicina animi, without having recourfe to the Books of Trifmegiftus. Pope and I fhould be her principal apothecaries in the courfe of the cure; and tho’ our beft Botanifts complain, that few of the herbs and fimples which go to the compofition of thefe remedies are to be found at prefent in our foil, yet there are more of them here than in Ireland; befides, by the help of a little chemistry the most noxious juices may become falubrious, and rank poifon a fpecific-Pope is now in my library with me, and writes to the world, to the prefent and to future ages, whilft I begin this letter which he is to hith to you. What good he will do to mankind I know no ; this comfort he may be fure of, he cannot do les tan

you

you have done before him. I have fometimes thought, that if preachers, hangmen, and moral-writers keep vice at a ftand, or fo much as retard the progrefs of it, they do as much as human nature admits: a real reformation is not to be brought about by ordinary means; it requires those extraordinary means which become punishments as well as leffons: National corruption muft be purged by national calamities. Let us hear from you. We deferve this attention because we defire it, and because we believe that you defire to hear from us.

LETTER XLVII.

Lord B. to Dr. SWIFT.

March 29.

Have delayed feveral pofts anfwering your letter of Ja nuary laft, in hopes of being able to fpeak to you about a project which concerns us both, but me the moft, fince the fuccefs of it would bring us together. It has been a good while in my head, and at my heart; if it can be fet agoing, you fhall hear more of it. I was ill in the beginning of the winter for near a week, but in no danger either from the nature of my diftemper, or from the attendance of three phyficians. Since that bilious intermitting fever, I have had, as I had before, better health than the regard I have payed to health deferves. We are both in the decline of life, my dear Dean, and have been fome years going down the hill; let us make the paffage as fmooth as we can. Let us fence againft phyfical evil by care, and the use of those means which experience must have pointed out to us: Let us fence against moral evil by philofophy. I renounce the alternative you propofe. But we may, nay (if we will follow nature, and do not work up imagination against her plaineft dictates) we shall of courfe grow every year more indifferent to life, and to the affairs and interefts of a fyftem out of which we are foon to go. This is much better than ftupidity. The decay of paffion ftrengthens philofophy, for paffion may decay, and ftupidity not fucceed. Paffions (lays Pope, our Divine, as you will fee one time or other) are the Gales of life: Let us not complain that they do not blow a ftorm. What hurt does age do us, in fubduing what we toil to fubdue all our lives? It is now fix in the morning : 1 recall the time (and am glad it is over) when about this hour VOL. IV. I used