Page images
PDF
EPUB

than none? I am towards nine years older fince I left you, yet that is the leaft of my alterations; my business, my diverfions, my converfations, are all entirely changed for the worse, and so are my ftudies and my amusements in writing; yet, after all, this humdrum way of life might be paffable enough, if you would let me alone. I fhall not be able to relish my wine, my parfons, my horfes, nor my garden for three months, until the spirit you have raised fhall be difpoffeffed. I have fometimes wondered that I have not vifited you, but I have been stopt by too many reafons, befides years and laziness, and yet these are very good ones. Upon my return after half a year amongst you, there would be to me Defiderio nec pudor nec modus. I was three years reconciling myself to the scene, and the bufinefs, to which fortune hath condemned me, and ftupidity was what I had recourse to. Befides, what a figure should I make in London, while my friends are in poverty, exile, diftrefs, or imprisonment, and my enemies with rods of iron? Yet I often threaten myself with the journey, and am every fummer practising to get health to bear it: The only inconvenience is, that I grow old in the experiment. Although I care not to talk to you as a Divine, yet I hope you have not been author of your colic: do you drink bad wine, or keep

bad

bad company? Are you not as many years older as I? It will not be always Et tibi quos mibi dempferit Apponet annos. I am heartily forry you have any dealings with that ugly distemper, and I believe our friend Arbuthnot will recommend you to temperance and exercife. I wish they could have as good an effect upon the giddinefs I am fubject to, and which this moment I am not free from. I should have been

glad if you had lengthened your letter by telling me the present condition of many of my old acquaintance, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Lewis, &c. but you mention only Mr. Pope, who I believe is lazy, or else he might have added three lines of his own. I am extremely glad he is not in your cafe of needing great mens favour, and could heartily with that you were in his. I have been confidering why Poets have fuch ill fuccefs in making their Court, fince they are allowed to be the greatest and best of all flatterers: The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth: They will give things under their hand which they make a confcience of speaking. Befides, they are too libertine to haunt antichambers, too poor to bribe Porters and Footmen, and too proud to cringe to fecond-hand favourites in a great family. Tell me, are you not under Original fin by the dedication of your D 2 Eclogues

Eclogues to Lord Bolingbroke? I am an ill Judge at this distance; and besides, am, for my cafe, utterly ignorant of the commoneft things that pafs in the world; but if all Courts have a fameness in them (as the Parfons phrase it) things may be as they were in my time, when all employments went to Parliament-mens Friends, who had been useful in Elections, and there was always a huge Lift of names in arrears at the Treafury, which would at least take up your feven years expedient to discharge even one half. I am of opinion, if you will not be offended, that the fureft courfe would be to get your Friend who lodgeth in your house to recommend you to the next chief Governor who comes over here for a good civil employment, or to be one of his Secretaries, which your Parliament-men are fond enough of, when there is no room at home. The wine is good and reasonable; you may dine twice a week at the Deanery-house; there is a set of company in this town fufficient for one man ; folks will admire you, because they have read you, and read of you; and a good employment will make you live tolerably in London, or fumptuously here; or if you divide between both places, it will be for your health.

you.

I wish I could do more than fay I love
you in a good way both for the late Court,

I left

and

and the Succeffors; and by the force of too much honefty or too little fublunary wisdom, you fell between two stools. Take care of your health and money; be lefs modeft and more active; or else turn Parfon and get a Bishoprick here: Would to God they would fend us as good ones from

your

fide!

I am ever, &c.

LETTER VII.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SWIFT.

Jan. 12, 1723.

Find a rebuke in a late Letter of yours, that both stings and pleaseth me extremely. Your faying that I ought to have writ a Poft-script to my friend Gay's, makes me not content to write less than a whole Letter; and your feeming to take his kindly, gives me hopes you will look upon this as a fincere effect of Friendfhip. Indeed as I cannot but own the Laziness with which you tax me, and with which I may equally charge you, for both of us have had (and one of us hath both had and given a) a Surfeit of writing; fo I really thought you

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

would know yourself to be so certainly intitled to my Friendship, that it was a poffeffion you could not imagine ftood in need of any further Deeds or Writings to affure you of it.

Whatever you seem to think of your withdrawn and separate state at this distance, and in this Abfence, Dean Swift lives ftill in England, in every place and company where he would chufe to live, and I find him in all the converfations I keep, and in all the Hearts in which I defire any share.

We have never met thefe many years without mention of you. Befides my old Acquaintance, I have found that all my friends of a later date are fuch as were yours before: Lord Oxford, Lord Harcourt, and Lord Harley may look upon me as one entailed upon them by. you: Lord Bolingbroke is now returned (as I hope) to take Me with all his other Hereditary Rights: and, indeed, he seems grown so much a Philofopher, as to fet his heart upon fome of them as little, as upon the Poet you gave him. It is fure my ill fate, that all thofe I most loved, and with whom I most lived, must be banished: After both of you left England, my constant Hoft was the Bishop of b Rochester. this is a nation that is curfedly afraid of being over-run with too much Politenefs, and can

Dr. Atterbury.

Sure

not

« EelmineJätka »