have given me. Madam, I have lived fixteen years in Ireland, with only an intermiffion of two fummers in England; and confequently am fifty years older than I was at the Queen's death, and fifty thousand times duller, and fifty million times more peevith, perverfe and morofe; fo that under thefe difadvantages I can only pretend to excel all your other acquaintance about fome twenty bars length. Pray, Madam, have you a clear voice? and will you let me fit at your left hand at leaft within three of you, for of two bad ears, my right is the beft? My Groom tells me that he likes your park, but your houfe is too little. Can the parfon of the parish play at backgammon, and hold his tongue? is any one of your Women a good nurse, if I thould fancy myfelf fick for four and twenty hours? how many days will you maintain me and my equipage? When thefe preliminaries are fettled, I must be very poor, very fick, or dead, or to the laft degree unfortunate, if I do not attend you at Aimfbury. For I profefs you are the first lady that ever I defired to fee, fince the first of Auguft 1714, and I have forgot the date when that defire grew ftrong upon me, but I know I was not then in England, elfe I would have gone on foot for that happiness as far as to your houfe in Scotland. But I can foon recollect the time, by afking fome Ladies here the month, the day, and the hour when I began to endure their company which however I think was a fign of my ill-judgment, for I do not perceive they mend in any thing but envying or admiring your Grace. I diflike nothing in your letter but an affected apology for bad writing, bad fpelling, and a bad pen, which you pretend Mr. Gay found fault with, wherein you affront Mr. Gay, you affront me, and you affront yourself. Falfe fpelling is only excufable in a Chambermaid, for I would not pardon it in any of your waiting-women.-Pray God preferve your Grace and family, and give me leave to expect that you will be fo juft to remember me among those who have the greatest regard for virtue, goodnefs, prudence, courage, and generofity; after which you must conclude that I am with the greatest refpect and gratitude, Madam, your Grace's most obedient and moft humble fervant, etc.

To Mr. GAY.

I have just got yours of February 24, with a poftfcript by Mr. Pope. I am in great concern for him: I find Mr. Pope dictated to you the first part, and with great diffi

culty

culty fome days after added the reft. I fee his weakness by his hand-writing. How much does his philofophy exceed mine? I could not bear to fee him: I will write to him foon,

LETTER LIII.

Dublin, June 29, 1731.

E VER fince I received your letter I have been upon a balance about going to England, and landing at Briftol, to pass a month at Aimfbury, as the Duchefs hath given me leave. But many difficulties have interfered; firft, I thought I had done with my law-fuit, and so did all my lawyers, but my adversary, after being in appearance a Proteftant thefe twenty years, hath declared he was always a Papift, and confequently by the law here, cannot buy nor (I think) fell; fo that I am at fea again, for almost all' I am worth. But I have ftill a worfe evil; for the giddinefs I was fubject to, inftead of coming feldom and violent, now conftantly attends me more or lefs, tho' in a more peaceable manner, yet fuch as will not qualify me to live among the young and healthy: And the Duchefs in all her youth, fpirit, and grandeur, will make a very ill nurfe, and her women not much better. Valetudinarians muft live where they can command, and fcold; 1 muft have horses to ride, I muft go to bed and rise when I please, and live where all mortals are fubfervient to me. I muft talk nonfenfe when I please, and all who are prefent muft commend it. I muft ride thrice a week, and walk three or four miles befides, every day.

I always told you Mr. was good for nothing but to be a rank Courtier. I care not whether he ever writes to me or no. He and you may tell this to the Duchefs, and I hate to see you fo charitable, and fuch a Cully; and yet I love you for it, because I am one myself.

You are the fillieft lover in Chriftendom: If you like Mrs. why do you not command her to take you? if fhe does not, fhe is not worth purfuing; you do her too much honour; fhe hath neither fenfe nor tafte, if she dares to refufe you, though fhe had ten thousand pounds. I do not remember to have told you of thanks that you have not given, nor do I understand your meaning, and I am fure I had never the leaft thoughts of any myfelf. If I am your friend, it is for my own reputation, and from a

principle

principle of felf-love, and I do fometimes reproach you for not honouring me by letting the world know we are friends.

I fee very well how matters go with the Duchess in regard to me. I heard her fay, Mr. Gay, fill your letter to the Dean, that there may be no room for me, the frolick is gone far enough, I have writ thrice, I will do no more; if the man has a mind to come, let him come; what a clutter is here? pofitively I will not write a fyllable more. She is an ungrateful Duchefs confidering how many adorers I have procured her here, over and above the thousands fhe had before.- -I cannot allow you rich enough till you are worth 7000, which will bring you 300 per annum, and this will maintain you, with the perquifite of fpunging while you are young, and when you are old will afford you a pint of port at night, two fervants, and an old maid, a little garden, and pen and ink - provided you live in the country Have you no fcheme either in verfe or profe? The Duchefs fhould keep you at hard meat, and by that means force you to write and fo I have done with you.

Madam,

Since I began to grow old, I have found all ladies become inconftant, without any reproach from their confcience. If I wait on you, I declare that one of your women (which ever it is that has defigns upon a Chaplain) must be my nurse, if I happen to be fick or peevish at your houfe, and in that cafe you muft fufpend your domineering Claim till I recover. Your omitting the ufual appendix to Mr. Gay's letters hath done me infinite mifchief here; for while you continued them, you would wonder how civil the Ladies here were to me, and how much they have altered fince. I dare not confefs that I have defcended fo low as to write to your Grace, after the abominable neglect you have been guilty of; for if they but fufpected it, I fhould lofe them all. One of them, who had an inkling of the matter (your Grace will hardly believe it) refused to beg my pardon upon her knees, for once neglecting to make my rice-milk.- Pray, confider this, and do your duty, or dread the confequence. I promife you fhall have your will fix minutes every hour at Aimfbury, and seven in London, while I am in health: but if I happen to be fick, I muft govern to a fecond. Yet properly fpeaking, there is no man alive with so much

truth

truth and respect your Grace's most obedient and devoted. fervant.

LETTER LIV.

Aug. 28, 1731.

You OU and the Duchefs ufe me very ill, for, I profess, I cannot diftinguish the ftyle or the hand-writing of either. I think her Grace writes more like you than herfelf, and that you write more like her Grace than yourfelf. I would fwear the beginning of your letter writ by the Duchefs, though it is to pafs for yours; because there is a curfed lie in it, that fhe is neither young nor healthy, and befides it perfectly refembles the part fhe owns. I will likewife fwear, that what I muft fuppofe is written by the Duchefs, is your hand; and thus I am puzzled and perplexed between you, but I will go on in the innocency of my own heart. I am got eight miles from our famous metropolis, to a country Parfon's, to whom I lately gave a City-living, fuch as an English Chaplain would leap at. I retired hither for the public good, having two great works in hand: One to reduce the whole politenefs, wit, humour, and ftyle of England, into a fhort fyftem, for the ufe of all perfons of quality, and particularly the maids of honour. The other is of almoft equal importance; I may call it the whole duty of fervants, in about twenty feveral ftations, from the fteward and waiting-woman down to the fcullion and pantry-boy +.-I believe no mortal had ever fuch fair invitations, as to be happy in the best company of England. I wish I had liberty to print your letter with my own comments upon it. There was a fellow in Ireland, who from a fhoe-boy grew to be feveral times one of the chief governors, wholly illiterate, and with hardly common fenfe: A Lord Lieutenant told the first King George, that he was the greateft fubject he had in both kingdoms; and truly this character was gotten and preferved by his never appearing in England, which was the only wife thing he ever did, except purchafing fixteen thousand pounds a year-Why, you need not stare : it is eafily apply'd: I must be abfent, in order to preferve my credit with her Grace.-Lo here comes in the Duchefs

Wagstaff's Dialogues of polite Converfation, published in his life-time.

An imperfect thing of this kind, called Directions to fervants in general, has been published fince his death.

again (I know her by her dd's; but am a fool for difcovering my Art) to defend herself againft my conjecture of what the faid-Madam, I will imitate your Grace and write to you upon the fame line. I own it is a base un-romantic fpirit in me, to fufpend the honour of waiting at your Grace's feet, till I can finifh a paultry law-fuit. It concerns indeed almoft my whole fortune; it is equal to half Mr. Pope's, and two thirds of Mr. Gay's, and about fix weeks rent of your Grace's. This curfed accident hath drill'd away the whole fummer. But, Madam, underftand one thing, that I take all your ironical civilities in a literal fenfe, and whenever I have the honour to attend you, fhall expect them to be literally perform'd: though perhaps I fhall find it hard to prove your hand-writing in a Court of juftice; but that will not be much for your credit. How miferably hath your Grace been mistaken in thinking to avoid Envy by running into exile, where it haunts you more than ever it did even at Court? Non te civitas, non regia domus in exilium miferunt, fed tu utrufque. So fays Cicero (as your Grace knows) or so he might have faid.

I am told that the Craftsman in one of his papers is offended with the publishers of (I fuppofe) the laft edition of the Dunciad; and I was afked whether you and Mr. Pope were as good friends to the new difgraced perfon as formerly? This I knew nothing of, but fuppofed it was the confequence of fome miftake. As to writing, I look on you juft in the prime of life for it, the very feafon when judgment and invention draw together. But fchemes are perfectly accidental; fome will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful; and others the contrary: And what you fay, is paft doubt, that every one can beft find hints for himself: though it is poffible that fometimes a friend may give you a lucky one juft fuited to your own imagination. But all this is almost paft with me; my invention and judgment are perpetually at fifty-cuffs, till they have quite difabled each other: and the meereft trifles I ever wrote are ferious philofophical lucubrations, in comparifon to what I now busy myfelf about; as (to speak in the author's phrafe) the world may one day fee *.

* His ludicrous prediction was, find his death, and very much to his dif honour, feriously fulfilled, in collecting together, and publishing every folly that fell from his pen, in this dijabled fate of his wit, as he himself reprefents it to be; and which, the productions of it amply verify. This treatment of fo great a Genius for a little paultry lucre, well deferves the indignation of the Public.

LETTER