dering the oppreffion of colical pains, and the great weaknefs of my breaft) would kill me; and if I did not die o that, I muft of the exceffive eating and drinking of your hofpitable town, and the exceffive flattery of your most poetical country. I hate to be cramm'd, either way. Let your hungry Poets, and your rhyming Poets, digeft it, I cannot. I like much better to be abufed and half ftarved, then to be fo over-praised and over-fed. Drown Ireland for having caught you, and for having kept you I only referve a little charity for her, for knowing your value, and efteeming you: You are the only Patriot I know, who is not hated for ferving his country. The man who drew your Character and printed it here, was not much in the wrong in many things he faid of you: yet he was a very impertinent fellow, for faying them in words quite diffe rent from thofe you had yourlelf employed before on the fame fubje&: for furely to alter your words is to prejudice them; and I have been told, that a man himself can hardly fay the fame thing twice over with equal happinefs; Nature is fo much a better thing than artifice.

I have written nothing this year: It is no affectation to to tell you, my Mother's lofs has turned my frame of thinking. The habit of a whole life is a ftronger thing than all the reafon in the world. I know I ought to be eafy, and to be free; but I am dejected, I am confined: my whole amufement is in reviewing my paft life, not in laying plans for my future. I wish you cared as little for popular applaufe as I; as little for any nation, in contradiftinction to others, as I and then I fancy, you that are not afraid of the fea, you that are a ftronger man at fixty than ever I was at twenty, would come and fee feveral people who are (at laft) like the primitive Chrif tians, of one foul and of one mind. The day is come, which I have often wifhed, but never thought to fee; when every mortal, that I efleem, is of the fame fentiment in Palitics and in Religion.

Adieu. All you love, are yours; but all are bufy, except (dear Sir) your fincere friend.

LETTER

LETTER LXX.

Jan. 6, 1734. 1 Never think of you and can never write to you, now, without drawing many of thofe fhort fighs of which we have formerly talk'd: The reflection both of the friends we have been depriv'd of by Death, and of those from whom we are separated almost as eternally by Abfence, checks me to that degree that it takes away in a manner the pleafure (which yet I feel very fenfibly too) of thinking I am now converfing with you. You have been filent to me as to your works; whether those printed here are, or are not genuine? but one, I am fure, is yours, and your method of concealing yourself puts me in mind of the Indian bird I have read of, who hides his head in a hole, while all his feathers and tail ftick out. You'll have immediately by feveral franks (even before 'tis here published) my Epiftle to Lord Cobham, part of my Opus Magnum, and the laft Effay on Man, both which, I conclude, will be grateful to your bookfeller, on whom you please to beftow them fo early. There is a woman's war declared against me by a certain Lord; his weapons are the fame which women and children use, a pin to scratch, and a squirt to bespatter: I writ a fort of answer, but was afhamed to enter the lifts with him, and after fhewing it to fome people, fupprefs'd it otherwife it was fuch as was worthy of him and worthy of me. I was three weeks this autumn with Lord Peterborow, who rejoices in your doings, and always speaks with the greatest affection of you. I need not tell you who elfe do the fame; you may be fure almoft all thofe whom I ever fee, or defire to fee. I wonder not that B- paid you no fort of civility while he was in Ireland: he is too much a half-wit to love a true wit, and too much halfhoneft, to esteem any entire merit. I hope and think he hates me too, and I will do my beft to make him he is fo infupportably infolent in his civility to me when he meets me at one third place, that I muft affront him to be rid of it. That ftri&t neutrality as to public parties, which I have conftantly obferv'd in all my writings, I think gives me the more title to attack fuch men, as flander and belye my character in private, to thofe who know me not. Yet even this is a liberty I will never take, unlefs at the fame time they are Pefts of private fociety, or mischievous members of the public, that is to fay, unless

they

they are enemies to all men as well as to me.-Pray write to me when you can: If ever I can come to you, I will: if not, may Providence be our friend and our guard thro' this fimple world, where nothing is valuable but fenfe and friendship. Adieu, dear Sir, may health attend your years, and then may many years be added to you.

P. S. I am juft now told, a very curious Lady intends to write to you to pump you about fome poems faid to be yours. Pray tell her, that you have not antwered me on the fame queftion, and that I fhall take it as a thing never to be forgiven from you, if you tell another what you have conceal'd from me.

LETTER LXXI.

Sept. 15, 1734•

Have ever thought you as fenfible as any man I knew, of all the delicacies of friendship, and yet I fear (from what Lord B. tells me you faid in your laft letter) that you did not quite underftand the reafon of my late filence. 1 affure you it proceeded wholly from the tender kindnes I bear you. When the heart is full, it is angry at all words that cannot come up to it; and you are now the man in all the world I am moft troubled to write to, for you are the friend I have left who I am moft grieved about. Death hath not done worse to me in feparating poor Gay, or any other, than difeafe and abfence in dividing us. I am afraid to know how you do, fince most accounts I have, give me pain for you, and I am unwilling to tell you the condition of my own health. If it were good, I would fee you; and yet, if I found you in that very condition of deafnefs, which made you fly from us while we were together, what comfort could we derive from it? In writing often I fhould find great relief, could we write freely and yet when I have done fo, you feem by not anfwering in a very long time, to feel either the fame uneafinefs as I do, or to abftain from fome prudential reason. Yet I am fure, nothing that you and I wou'd fay to each other (tho' our own fouls were to be laid open to the clerks of the poft-office) could hurt either of us fo much, in the opinion of any honeft man or good fubject, as the intervening, officious, impertinence of theie Goers between us, who in England pretend to intimacies with VOL. IV.

yo,

you, and in Ireland to intimacies with me. I cannot bu receive any that call upon me in your name, and in truth they take it in vain too often. I take all I take all opportunities of justifying you against these Friends, efpecially those who know all you think and write, and repeat your flighter veries. It is generally on fuch little fcraps that Witlings feed, and 'tis hard the world fhould judge of our houfekeeping from what we fling to our dogs, yet this is often the confequence. But they treat you ftill worse, mix their own with yours, print them to get money, and lay them at your door. This I am fatisfied was the cafe in the Epiftle to a Lady; it was juft the fame hand (if I have any judgment in ftyle) which printed your Life and Character before, which you fo ftrongly difavow'd in your letters to Lord Carteret, myself, and others. I was very well informed of another fact, which convinced me yet more; the fame perfon who gave this to be printed, offer'd to a bookfeller a piece in profe as yours, and as commiffioned by you, which has fince appear'd, and been own'd to be his own. I think (I fay once more) that I know your hand, tho' you did not mine in the Fffay on Man. I beg your pardon for not telling you, as I fhould, had you been in England: but no fecret can crofs your Irish Sea, and every clerk in the poft-office had known it, I fancy, tho' you loft fight of me in the firft of thofe Effays, you faw me in the fecond. The defign of concealing myself was good, and had its full effect; I was thought a Divine, a Philofopher, and what not; and my doctrine had a fanction I could not have given to it. Whether I can proceed in the fame grave march like Lucretius, or muft defcend to the gayeties of Horace, I know not, or whether I can do either? but be the future as it will, I fhall collect all the paft in one fair quarto this winter, and fend it you, where you will find frequent mention of yourself. I was glad you fuffer'd your writings to be collected more completely than hithe to, in the volumes I daily expect from Ireland: I wifh'd it had been in more pomp, but that will be done by others: yours are beauties, that can never be too finely dreft, for they will ever be young. I have only one piece of mercy to beg of you; do not laugh at my gravity, but permit me to wear the beard of a Philofopher, till I pull it off, and make a jeft of it myself. 'Tis juft what my Lord B. is doing with Metaphyfics. I hope, you will live to fee, and ftare at the learned figure he will make, on the fame fhelf with Locke and Malbranche.

You

You fee how I talk to you (for this is not writing) if you like I fhould do fo, why not tell me fo? if it be the leaft pleasure to you, I will write once a week most gladly; but can you abftract the letters from the person who writes them, fo far, as not to feel more vexation in the thought of our feparation, and thofe misfortunes which occafion it, than fatisfaction in the Nothings he can exprefs? If you can, really and from my heart I cannot. I retura again to melancholy. Pray, however, tell me, is it a fatisfaction that will make it one to me; and we will think alike, as friends ought, and you fhall hear me punctually juft when you will.

P. S. Our friend, who is just returned from a progress of three months, and is fetting out in three days with me for the Bath, where he will ftay till towards the middle of October, left this letter with me yefterday, and I cannot feal and dispatch it till I have fcribbled the remainder of this page full. He talks very pompously of my Metaphyfics, and places them in a very honourable ftation. It is true, I have writ fix letters and an half to him on fubjects of that kind, and I propose a letter and an half more, which would fwell the whole up to a confiderable volume. But he thinks me fonder of the Name of an Author than I am. When he and you, and one or two other friends have feen them, fatis magnum Theatrum mihi eftis, I fhall not have the Itch of making them more public. I know how little regard you pay to Writings of this kind. But I imagine that if you can like any fuch, it must be those that trip Metaphyfics of all their bombaft, keep within the fight of every well conftituted Eye, and never bewilder themselves whilft they pretend to guide the reafon of others. I writ to you a long letter fome time ago, and fent it by the poft. Did it come to your hands? or did the infpectors of private correfpondence ftop it to revenge themfelves of the ill faid of them in it? Vale et me ama.

His Lordship, as appears by his laft will, altered his mind; and they have been fince given to the world, to the ad miration and aftonishment of all the learned and the pious.