among the Zabians, Magians, and the Egyptian Seers) both his outward and his inward Doctrine, and that he was of no fide at the bottom. When I am there, I forget I ever was of any party myself; nay, I am often fo happily absorbed by the abstracted reason of things, that I am ready to imagine there never was any fuch monster as Party. Alas, I am soon awakened from that pleafing dream by the Greek and Roman Hiftorians, by Guicciardine, by Machiavel, and Thuanus; for I have vowed to read no History of our own country, till that body of it which you promise to finish, appears a.

I am under no apprehenfion that a glut of Study and Retirement should caft me back into the hurry of the world; on the contrary, the fingle regret which I ever feel, is that I fell fo late into this courfe of life; my Philosophy grows confirmed by habit, and if you and I meet again, I will extort this approbation from you: Jam non confilio bonus, fed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere poffim, fed nifi recte facere non poffim. The little incivilities I have met with from oppofite fetts of people, have been fo far from rendering me violent or four to any, that I think myself obliged to them all; fome have cured me of my fears, by fhewing me how impotent the malice

a See the first note on Lett. V. of this Vol.

of

my

of the world is; others have cured me of hopes, by fhewing how precarious popular friendships are; all have cured me of furprize: In driving me out of party, they have driven me out of curfed company; and in stripping me of Titles and Rank, and Estate, and such trinkets, which every man that will may spare, they have given me that which no man can be happy without.

Reflection and habit have rendered the world fo indifferent to me, that I am neither afflicted nor rejoiced, angry nor pleased at what happens in it, any farther than perfonal friendships interest me in the affairs of it, and this principle extends my cares but a little way. Perfect Tranquillity is the general tenour of my life: good digeftions, ferene weather, and fome other mechanic fprings, wind me above it now and then, but I never fall below it; I am fometimes gay, but I am never fad. I have gained new friends, and have loft fome old ones; my acquifitions of this kind give me a good deal of pleasure, because they have not been made lightly I know no vows fo folemn as those of friendship, and therefore a pretty long noviciate of acquaintance fhould methinks precede them: My loffes of this kind give me but little trouble; I contributed nothing to them; and a friend who breaks with me unjustly, is not worth pre

ferving.

ferving. As foon as I leave this Town (which will be in a few days) I fhall fall back into that course of life, which keeps knaves and fools at a great distance from me: I have an averfion to them both, but in the ordinary course of life I think I can bear the fenfible knave better than the fool. One muft indeed with the former be in fome or other of the attitudes of those wooden men whom I have feen before a fword-cutler's shop in Germany; but even in these constrained postures the witty Rafcal will divert me; and he that diverts me does me a great deal of good, and lays me under an obligation to him, which I am not obliged to pay him in another coin: The Fool obliges me to be almost as much upon my guard as the knave, and he makes me no amends; he numbs me like the Torpor, or he teazes me like the Fly. This is the Picture of an old Friend, and more like him than that will be which you once afked, and which he will fend if you, you continue ftill to defire it.Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort, and love me on with all mine.

LET

LETTER IX.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Dublin, Sept. 20, 1723.

Returning from afummer expedition of four

months on account of my health, I found a letter from you, with an appendix longer than yours from Lord Bolingbroke. I believe there is not a more miserable malady than an unwillingness to write letters to our best friends, and a man might be philofopher enough in finding out reafons for it. One thing is clear, that it fhews a mighty difference betwixt Friendship and Love, for a lover (as I have heard) is always fcribling to his mistress. If I could permit myself to believe what your civility makes you say, that I am still remembered by my friends in England, I am in the right to keep myself here- Non fum qualis eram. I left you in a period of life when one year does more execution than three at yours, to which if you add the dulnefs of the air, and of the people, it will make a terrible fum. I have no very strong faith in you pretenders to Retirement; you are not of an age for it, nor have gone through either good or bad fortune enough to go into a corner, and form conclufions de contemptu mundi & fuga fæculi, unless

a Poet

a Poet grows weary of too much applause, as Ministers do of too much weight of business.

Your happiness is greater than your Merit, in chufing your Favourites fo indifferently among either Party: this you owe partly to your Education, and partly to your genius employing you in an Art in which Faction has nothing to do, for I fuppofe Virgil and Horace are equally read by Whigs and Tories. You have no more to do with the Conftitution of Church and State, than a Chriftian at Conftantinople; and you are fo much the wiser and the happier, because both Parties will approve your Poetry as long as you are known to be of neither.

Your notions of Friendship are new to me a ; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first places in my Friendship, but they are not in the way: I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in Pennyworths to thofe about me, and who displease me leaft; and should do the fame to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to jayl. I can likewife tolerate Knaves much better than Fools, because their knavery does me no hurt in the commerce I have with them, which

a

Yet they are the Christian notions.

however