in town or country, and be able to give your friend a pint of Port; for the domestic season of life will come on. I had never much hopes of you vampt Play, although Mr. Pope feem'd to have, and although it were ever fo good: But you should have done like the Parfons, and chang'd your Text, I mean the Title, and the names of the perfons. After all, it was an effect of idleness, for you are in the prime of life, when invention and judgment go together. I wish you had 100l. a year more for horfes-I ride and walk whenever good weather invites, and am reputed the beft walker in this town and five miles round. I writ lately to Mr. Pope: I wish you had a little Villakin in his neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, and any Lady with a coach and fix horfes would carry you to Japan.

WH

LETTER L.

Dublin, Nov. 10, 1730.

HEN my Lord Peterborow in the Queen's time went abroad upon his Ambaffies, the Miniftry told me, that he was fuch a vagrant, they were forced to write at him by guess, because they knew not where to write to him. This is my cafe with you: fometimes in Scotland, fometimes at Hamwalks, fometimes God knows where. You are a man of bufinefs, and not at leifure for infignificant correspondence It was I got you the employment of being my Lord Duke's premier Miniftre: for his Grace having heard how good a manager you were of my revenue, thought you fit to be entrusted with ten talents. I have had twenty times a ftrong inclination to fpend a fummer near Salisbury-downs, having rode over them more than once, and with a young parfon of Salisbury reckoned twice the ftones of Stone-henge, which are either ninety-two or ninety-three. I defire to prefent my most humble acknowledgments to my Lady Duchefs in return of her civility. I hear an ill thing, that the is matre pulchra filia pulchrior: I never faw her fince fhe was a girl, and would be angry fhe fhould exel her mother, who was long my principal Goddefs. I defire you will tell her Grace, that the ill-management of forks is not to be help'd when they are only bidental, which happens in all poor houfes, espe cially thofe of Poets; upon which account a knife was abfolutely neceffary at Mr. Pope's, where it was morally impoffible with a bidential fork to convey a morfel of beef,

with the incumbrance of muftard and turnips, into your mouth at once. And her Grace hath coft me thirty pounds to provide Tridents for fear of offending her, which fum I defire fhe will pleafe to return me.-I am fick enough to go to the Bath, but have not heard it will be good for my diforder. I have a ftrong mind to fpend my 2007. next fummer in France: I am glad I have it, for there is hardly twice that fum left in this kingdom. You want no fettlement (I call the family where you live, and the foot you are upon, a fettlement) till you increafe your fortune to what will fupport you with eafe and plenty, a good house and a garden. The want of this I much dread for you: For I have often known a She-coufin of a good family and fmall fortune, paffing months among all her relations, living in plenty, and taking her circles, till fhe grew an old Maid, and every body weary of her. Mr. Pope complains of feldom feeing you; but the evil is unavoidable, for different circumftances of life have always feparated thofe whom friendship would join: God hath taken care of this, to prevent any progrefs, towards real happiness here, which would make life more defirable, and death too dreadful. I hope you have now one advantage that you always wanted before, and the want of which made your friends as uneafy as it did yourself; I mean the removal of that folicitude about your own affairs, which perpetually fill'd your thoughts and difturb'd your converfation. For if it be true what Mr. Pope ferioufly tells me, you will have opportunity of faving every groat of the intereft you receive; and fo by the time he and you grow weary of each other, you will be able to pafs the reft of your winelefs life in eafe and plenty, with the additional triumphal comfort of never having receiv'd a penny from thofe taftelefs ungrateful people from whom you deferv'd fo much, and who deferve no better Geniufes than thofe by whom they are celebrated.-If you fee Mr. Cefar, prefent my humble fervice to him, and let him know that the fcrub Libel printed againft me here, and reprinted in London, for which he fhewed a kind concern to a friend of us both, was written by myfelf and fent to a Whigprinter: It was in the ftyle and genius of fuch fcoundrels, when the humour of libelling ran in this ftrain againft a friend of mine whom you know.-But my paper is ended.

LETTER

LETTER LI

Dublin, Nov. 19, 1730. I Writ to you a long letter about a fortnight paft, concluding you were in London, from whence I understood one of your former was dated : Nor did I imagine you were gone back to Aimfbury fo late in the year, at which feafon I take the Country to be only a fcene for those who have been ill-ufed by a Court on account of their Virtues; which is a state of happiness the more valuable, because it is not accompanied by Envy, although nothing deferves it more. I would gladly fell a Dukedom to lofe favour in the manner their Graces have done. I believe my Lord Carteret, fince he is no longer Lieutenant, may not with me ill, and I have told him often that I only hated him as a Lieutenant: I confefs he had a genteeler manner of binding the chains of this kingdom than most of his predeceffors, and 1 confefs at the fame time that he had, fix times, a regard to my recommendation by preferring fo many of my friends in the church; the two laft acts of his favour were to add to the dignities of Dr. Delany and Mr. Stopford, the laft of whom was by you and Mr. Pope put into Mr. Pultney's hands. I told you in my laft, that a continuance of giddinefs (though not in a violent degree) prevented my thoughts of England at prefent. For in my cafe a domeftic life is neceffary, where I can with the Centurion fay to my fervant, Go, and he goeth, and Do this, and he doeth it. I now hate all people whom I cannot command, and confequently a Duchefs is at this time the hatefulleft Lady in the world to me, one only excepted, and I beg her Grace's pardon for that exception, for, in the way I mean, her Grace is ten thousand times more hateful. I confefs I begin to apprehend you will fquander my money, because I hope you never lefs wanted it; and if you go on with fuccefs for two years longer, I fear I fhall not have a farthing of it left. The Doctor hath ill informed me, who fays that Mr. Pope is at prefent the chief Poetical Favourite, yet Mr. Pope himself talks like a Philofopher and one wholly retir'd. But the vogue of our few honeft folks here is, that Duck is abfolutely to fucceed Eufden in the laurel, the contention being between Concannen or Theobald, or fome other Hero of the Dunciad. I never charged you for not talking, but the dubious ftate of your affairs in those days was too much the fubject, and VOL. IV. X x I with

I wish the Duchefs had been the voucher of your amendment. Nothing fo much contributed to my ease as the turn of affairs after the Queen's death; by which all my hopes being cut off, I could have no ambition left, unless I would have been a greater rascal than happened to fuit with my temper. I therefore fat down quietly at my morfel, adding only thereto a principle of hatred to all fucceeding Meafures and Miniftries by way of fauce to relish my meat: And I confefs one point of conduct in my Lady Duchefs's life hath added much poignancy to it. There is a good Irish practical bull towards the end of your letter, where you spend a dozen lines in telling me you must leave off, that you may give my Lady Duchefs room to write, and fo you proceed to within two or three lines of the bottom; though I would have remitted you my 200l. to have left place for as many more.

At the

My beginning thus low is meant as a mark of refpe&t, like receiving your Grace at the bottom of the ftairs. Í am glad you know your duty; for it hath been a known and establish'd rule above twenty years in England, that the first advances hath been conftantly made me by all Ladies who afpir'd to my acquaintance, and the greater their quality, the greater were their advances. Yet, I know not by what weakness, I have condefcended gracioufly to difpenfe with you upon this important article. Though Mr. Gay will tell you that a nameless perfon fent me eleven meffages before I would yield to a vifit: I mean a perfon to whom he is infinitely obliged, for being the occafion of the happinefs he now enjoys under the protection and favour of my Lord Duke and your Grace. fame time, I cannot forbear telling you, Madam, that you are a little imperious in your manner of making your advances. You fay, perhaps you shall not like me; I affirm you are mistaken, which I can plainly demonstrate : for I have certain intelligence, that another person diflikes me of late, with whofe likings yours have not for fome time paft gone together. However, if I fhall once have the honour to attend your Grace, I will out of fear and prudence appear as vain as I can, that I may not know your thoughts of me. This is your own direction, but it was needleís: For Diogenes himself would be vain, to have received the honour of being one moment of his life in the thoughts of your Grace. LETTER

YOUR

LETTER

LII.

Dublin, April 13, 1731.

OUR fituation is an odd one; the Duchefs is your Treasurer, and Mr Pope tells me you are the Duke's. And I had gone a good way in fome Verfes on that occafion, prefcribing leffons to direct your conduct, in a negative way, not to do fo and fo, etc. like other Treafurers; how to deal with Servants, Tenants, or neighbouring Squires, which I take to be Courtiers, Parliaments, and Princes in alliance, and fo the parallel goes on, but grows too long to pleafe me: I prove that Poets are the fitteft perfons to be treafurers and managers to great perfons, from their virtue, and contempt of money, etc.Pray, why did you not get a new heel to your fhoe? unlefs you would make your court at St. James's by affecting to imitate the Prince Lilliput.-But the reft of your letter being wholly taken up in a very bad character of the Duchefs, I fhall fay no more to you, but apply myself to her Grace.

Madam, fince Mr. Gay affirms that you love to have your own way, and fince I have the fame perfection; I will fettle that matter immediately, to prevent thofe ill confequences he apprehends. Your Grace fhall have your own way, in all places except your own house, and the domains about it. There and there only, I expect to have mine, fo that you have all the world to reign in, bating only two or three hundred acres, and two or three houfes in town and country. I will likewife, out of my special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, allow you to be in the right against all human kind, except myfelf, and to be never in the wrong but when you differ form me. You fhall have a greater privilege in the third article of fpeaking your mind; which I fhall graciously allow you now and then to do even to myself, and only rebuke you when it does not please me.

Madam, I am now got as far as your Grace's letter, which having not read this fortnight (having been out of town, and not daring to trust myself with the carriage of it) the prefumptuous manner in which you begin had flipt out of my memory. But I forgive you to the feventeenth line, where you begin to banish me for ever, by demanding me to answer all the good character fome partial friends X x 2

have