difpofition fhould not be fo mathematical, in taking it with you to that place where men of studious minds are apt to fit longer than ordinary; where, after an abrupt divifion of the paper, it may not be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the broken lines together. All these amusements I am no stranger to in the Country, and doubt not but (by this time) you begin to relish them, in your prefent contemplative fitu

ation.

I remember a man, who was thought to have fome knowledge in the world, used to affirm, that no people in town ever complained they were forgotten by their Friends in the country but my encreafing experience convinces me he was mistaken, for I find a great many here grievously complaining of you, upon this fcore. I am told further, that you treat the few you correfpond with in a very arrogant style, and tell them you admire at their infolence in disturbing your meditations, or even enquiring of your retreat a: but this I will not pofitively affert, because I never received any fuch infulting Epistle from you. My Lord Oxford fays you have not written to him once

a Some time before the death of Queen Anne, when her Ministers were quarrelling, and the Dean could

not reconcile them, he retired to a Friend's Houfe in Berkshire, and never faw them after.

S.

fince you went: but this perhaps may be only policy, in him or you and I, who am half a Whig, must not entirely credit any thing he affirms. At Button's it is reported you are gone to Hanover, and that Gay goes only on an Embassy to you. Others apprehend fome dangerous State treatise from your retirement; and a Wit, who affects to imitate Balfac, fays, that the Ministry now are like thofe Heathens of old, who received their oracles from the Woods. The Gentlemen of the Roman Catholic perfuafion are not unwilling to credit me, when I whisper, that you are gone to meet fome Jefuits commiffioned from the Court of Rome, in order to settle the most convenient methods to be taken for the coming of the Pretender. Dr. Arbuthnot is fingular in his opinion, and imagines your only design is to attend at full leifure to the life and adventures of Scriblerus b. This indeed must be granted of greater importance than all the reft; and I wish I could pro

This project (in which | the principal perfons engaged were Dr. Arbuthnot, Dr. Swift, and Mr. Pope) was a very noble one. It was to write a complete fatire in profe upon the abufes in every branch of science, comprifed in the hiftory of the

life and writings of Scribles rus; the iffie of which were only fome detached parts and fragments, fuch as the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Travels of Gulliver, the Treatife of the Profund, the literal Criticisms on Virgil,

&c.

B 3

mife

mife fo well of you. The top of my own ambition is to contribute to that great work, and I shall translate Homer by the by. Mr. Gay has acquainted you what progress I have made in it. I can't name Mr. Gay, without all the acknowledgements which I shall ever owe you, on his account. If I writ this in verfe I would tell you, you are like the fun, and while men imagine you to be retired or absent, are hourly exerting your indulgence, and bringing things to maturity for their advantage. Of all the world, you are the man (without flattery) who serve your friends with the leaft oftentation; it is almost ingratitude to thank you, confidering your temper; and this is the period of all my letter which I fear you will think the most impertinent. I am with the trueft affection,

Yours, &c.

LET

LETTER II.

From Dr. SWIFT to Mr. POPE.

M

Dublin, June 28, 1715.

Ya Lord Bishop of Clogher gave me your kind letter full of reproaches for my not writing. I am naturally no very exact correfpondent, and when I leave a country without probability of returning, I think as feldom as I can of what I loved or esteemed in it, to avoid the Defiderium which of all things makes life most uneafy. But you muft give me leave to add one thing, that you talk at your ease, being wholly unconcerned in public events: For, if your friends the Whigs continue, you may hope for fome favour; if the Tories return, you are at least fure of quiet. You know how well I loved both Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, and how dear the Duke of Ormond is to me: Do you imagine I can be eafy while their enemies are endeavouring to take off their heads? 1 nunc & verfus tecum meditare canoros-Do you imagine I can be eafy, when I think of the probable confequences of

a Dr. St. George Afb, formerly a fellow of TrinityCollege, Dublin, (to whom the Dean was a Pupil) after

B 4

wards Bishop of Clogher, and tranflated to the See of Derry in 1716-17.

S.

these

thefe proceedings, perhaps upon the very peace of the nation, but certainly of the minds of fo many hundred thousand good fubjects? Upon the whole, you may truly attribute my filence to the Eclipfe, but it was that Eclipse which happened on the first of Auguft.

I borrowed your Homer from the Bishop (mine is not yet landed) and read it out in two evenings. If it pleaseth others as well as me, you have got your end in profit and reputation: Yet I am angry at some bad Rhymes and Triplets, and pray in your next do not let me have

fo

many unjustifiable Rhymes to war and gods. I tell you all the faults I know, only in one or two places you are a little obfcure; but I expected you to be fo in one or two and twenty. I have heard no foul talk of it here, for indeed it is not come over; nor do we very much abound in judges, at least I have not the honour to be acquainted with them. Your Notes are perfectly good, and fo are your Preface and Effay. You are pretty bold in mentioning Lord Bolingbroke in that Preface. I faw the Key to the Lock but yefterday: I think you have changed it a good deal, to adapt it to the prefent times b

b Put thefe two laft obfervations together, and it

God

will appear, that Mr. Pope never wanting to his

was

friends