FROM DR. S.WIFT, etc 395 mine is at prefent, tolerable, when an eafy inind is join'd with it. I LETTER LXXXIII. From Dr. SWIFT. Dec. 2, 1736. Think you owe me a letter, but whether you do or not, I have not been in a condition to write. Years and Infirmities have quite broke me; I mean that odious continual diforder in my head. I neither read, nor write, nor remember, nor converfe. All I have left is to walk and ride; the firft I can do tolerably; but the latter, for want of good weather at this feafon, is feldom in my power; and having not an ounce of flesh about me, my fkin comes off in ten miles riding, because my skin and bone cannot agree together. But I am angry, because you will not fuppofe me as fick as I am, and write to me out of perfect charity, although I fhould not be able to anfwer. I have too many vexations by my ftation and the impertinence of people, to be able to bear the mortification of not hearing from a very few diftant friends that are left; and, confidering how time and fortune have ordered matters, I have hardly one friend left but yourself. What Horace fays, Singula de nobis anni praedantur, I feel every month, at fartheft; and by this computation, if I hold out two years, I fhall think it a miracle. My comfort is, you begun to diftinguifh fo confounded early, that your acquaintance with diftinguifh'd men of all kinds was almoft as ancient as mine. I mean Wycherley, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Addifon, Parnel, etc. and in fpite of your heart you have owned me a Cotemporary. Not to mention Lords Oxford, Bolingbroke, Harcourt, Peterborow: In fhort, I was t'other day recollecting twentyfeven great Minifters, or Men of Wit and Learning, who are all dead, and all of my acquaintance, within twenty years paft: neither have I the grace to be forry, that the prefent times are drawn to the dregs as well as my own life.-May my friends be happy in this and a better life, but I value not what becomes of Pofterity, when I confider from what Monfters they are to fpring.-My Lord Orrery writes to you to-morrow, and you fee I fend this under his cover, or at leaft franked by him. He has 3000 a year about Cork, and the neighbourhood, and Eee 2 has has more than three years rent unpaid: This is our condition, in these bleffed times. I writ to your neighbour about a month ago, and fubfcribed my name: I fear he hath not received my letter, and wish you would ask him; but perhaps he is ftill rambling; for we hear of him at Newmarket, and that Boerhaave hath reftor'd his health. How ny fervices are leffened of late with the number of my friends on your fide! yet, my Lord Bathurst and Lord Mafham and Mr. Lewis remain, and being your acquaintance, I defire when you fee them to deliver my compliments; but chiefly to Mrs. P. B. and let me know whether the be as young and agreeable as when I faw her laft? Have you got a fupply of new friends to make up for thole who are gone? and are they equal to the firft? I am afraid it is with friends as with times; and that the laudator temporis acti fe puero, is equally applicable to both. I am leis grieved for living here, becaufe it is a perfect retirement, and confequently fitteft for those who are grown good for nothing: for this town and kingdom are as much out of the world as North-Wales--My head is fo ill that I cannot write a paper full as I ufed to do; and yet I will not forgive a blank of half an inch from you.-I had reafon to expect from fome of your letters, that we were to hope for more Epiftles of Morality; and, I affure you, my acquaintance refent that they have not feen my name at the head of one. The fubje&ts of fuch Fpiftles are more ufeful to the public, by your manner of handling them, than any of all your writings: and although, in fo profligate a world as ours, they may poffibly not much mend our manners, yet pofterity will enjoy the benefit, whenever a Court happens to have the leaft relish for Virtue and Religion. LETTER LXXXIV. To Dr. SWIFT. Decemb. 30, 1736. OUR very kind letter has made me more melancholy, than almost any thing in this world now can do. For I can bear every thing in it, bad as it is, better than the complaints of my friends. Tho' others tell me you are in pretty good health, and in good fpirits, I find the contrary when you open your mind to me: And indeed it is but a prudent part, to fcem not fo concern'd about others, nor fo crazy ourselves as we really are: for we fhall hall neither be beloved nor efteemed the more, by our common acquaintance, for any affliction or any infirmity. But to our true friend we may, we muft complain, of what ('tis a thousand to one) he complains with us; for if we have known him long, he is old, and if he has known the world long, he is out of humour at it. If you have but as much more health than others at your age, as you have more wit and good temper, you fhall not have much of my Pity But if you ever live to have lefs, you fhall not have lefs of my Affection. A whole people will rejoice at every year that fhall be added to you, of which you have had a late inftance in the public rejoicings on your birth-day. I can affure you fomething better and greater than high birth and quality muft go toward acquiring thofe demonftrations of public eftcem and love. I have feen a royal birth-day uncelebrated, but by one vile Ode, and one hired bonefire. Whatever years may take away from you, they will not take away the general efteem, for your Senfe, Virtue, and Charity. The moft melancholy effect of years is that you mention, the catalogue of thofe we lov'd and have loft, perpétually increafing. How much that Reflection ftruck me, you'll fee from the Motto I have prefix'd to my Book of Letters, which fo much againft my inclination has been drawn from me. It is from Catullus; 66 Quo defiderio veteres revocamus Amores, I detain this letter till I can find fome fafe conveyance; innocent as it is, and as all letters of mine muft be, of any thing to offend my fuperiors, except the reverence 1 bear to true merit and virtue: "But I have much reafon to to fear, those which you have too partially kept in your hand will get out in fome very difagreeable fhape, in "cafe of our mortality: and the more reafon to fear it, "fince this laft month Curl has obtain'd from Ireland "two letters, (one of Lord Bolingbroke and one of mine, "to you, which were wrote in the year 1723) and he has printed them, to the beft of my memory, rightly, ex66 cept one paffage concerning Dawley, which muft have "been fince inferted, fince my Lord had not that place "at that time. Your anfwer to that letter he has not got; it has never been out of my cuftody; for whatever is "lent is loft (Wit as well as Money) to these needy poetical Readers." The * The world will certainly be the better for his change of life. He feems, in the whole turn of his letters, to be a fettled and principled Philofopher, thanking Fortune for the Tranquility he has been led into by her averfion, like a man driven by a violent wind, from the fea into a calm harbour. You afk me, if I have got any fupply of new Friends to make up for thofe that are gone? I think that impoffible, for not our friends only, but fo much of ourselves is gone by the mere flux and courfe of years, that, were the fame Friends to be reftored to us, we could not be reftored to ourselves, to enjoy them. But as when the continual washing of a river takes away our flowers and plants, it throws weeds and fedges in their room ; fo the course of time brings us fomething, as it deprives us of a great deal; and inftead of leaving us what we cultivated, and expected to flourish and adorn us, gives us only what is of fome little ufe, by accident. Thus I have acquired, without my fecking, a few chance acquaintance, of young men, who look rather to the paft age than the prefent, and therefore the future may have fome hopes of them. If I love them, it is becaufe they honour fome of those whom I, and the world have loft, or are lofing. Two or three of them have diftinguifh'd themselves in Parliament, and you will own in a very uncommon manner, when I tell you it is by their afferting of Independency, and contempt of Corruption. One or two are link'd to me by their love of the fame ftudies and the fame authors: but I will own to you, my moral capacity has got fo much the better of my poetical, that I have few acquaintance on the latter fcore, and none without a cafting weight on the former. But I find my heart harden'd and blunt to new impreffions; it will fearce receive or retain affections of yesterday; and those friends who have been dead thefe twenty years, are more prefent to me now, than thefe I fee daily. You, dear Sir, are one of the former fort to me in all refpects, but that we can, yet, correfpond together. I don't know whether 'tis not more vexatious, to know we are both in one world, without any further intercourfe. Adieu, I can fay no more; I feel fo much: Let me drop into common things.-Lord Mafham has just married his fon. Mr. Lewis has juft buried his wife. Lord Oxford wept over *There are fome ftrokes in this fetter, which can be accounted for no otherwife than by the Author's extreme compaffion and tenderness of heart, too much affected by the complaints of a peevith old man, (labouring and impa tient under his infirmities) and too intent in the friendly office of mollifying them. your your letter in pure kindness. Mrs. B. fighs more for you than the lofs of youth. She fays, fhe will be agreeable many years hence, for fhe has learn'd that fecret from fome receipts of your writing.-Adieu. LETTER LXXXV. March 23, 1736-7. THOUGH you were never to write to me, yet what you defired in your laft, that I would write often to you, would be a very easy task; for every day I talk with you, and of you, in my heart; and I need only fet down what that is thinking of. The nearer I find myfelf verging to that period of life which is to be labour and forrow, the more I prop myfelf upon thofe few fupports that are left me. People in this ftate are like props indeed, they cannot ftand alone, but two or more of them can ftand, leaning and bearing upon one another. I wish you and I might pafs this part of life together. My only neceffary care is at an end. I am now my own mafter too much; my houfe is too large; my gardens furnifh too much wood and provifion for my ufe. My fervants are fenfible and tender of me; they have intermarried, and are become rather low friends than fervants: and to all thofe that I fee here with pleafure, they take a pleasure in being ufeful. I conclude this is your cafe too in your domeftic life, and I fometimes think of your old houfe-keeper as my nurfe: tho' I tremble at the fca, which only divides us. As your fears are not fo great as mine, and, I firmly hope, your ftrength ftill much greater, is it utterly impoffible, it might once more be fome pleafure to you to fee England? My fole motive in propofing France to meet in, was the narrowness of the paffage by fea from hence, the Phyficians having told me the weaknefs of my breaft, etc. is fuch, as a feafickness might endanger my life. Tho' one or two of our friends are gone, fince you faw your native country, there remain a few more who will laft fo till death, and who, I cannot but hope, have an attractive power to draw you back to a Country, which cannot quite be funk or enflaved, while fuch fpirits remain. And let me tell you there are a few more of the fame fpirit, who would awaken all your old Ideas, and revive your hopes of her future recovery and Virtue. Thefe look up to you with reverence, and would be animated by the fight of him at whose foul they |