My wife defires not to be forgotten by you; fhe's faithfully your fervant, and zealously your admirer. She will be concerned and difappointed not to find you in this Ifland at her return, which hope both fhe and I had been made to entertain before I went abroad.

LETTER XLI.

Dr. SWIFT to Lord BOLINGBROKE.

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Receiv'd

Dublin, Oct. 31, 1729.

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your Lordship's travelling letter of feveral dates, at feveral ftages, and from different nations, languages, and religions. Neither could any thing be more obliging than your kind remembrance of me in fo many places. As to your ten Luftres, I remember, when I complained in a Letter to Prior, that I was fifty years old, he was half angry in jeft, and anfwered me out of Terence, ifta commemoratio eft quafi exprobratio. How then ought I to rattle you, when I have a dozen years more to anfwer for, all monaftically paffed in this Country of liberty and delight, and money, and good company! I go on anfwering your letter; It is you were my Hero, but the other never was; yet if he were, it was your own fault, who taught me to love him, and often vindi- ́

. L. Ox.

a

cated

cated him, in the beginning of your miniftry, from my accufations. But I granted he had the greatest inequalities of any man alive, and his whole scene was fifty times more a What-d'yecall it, than yours: fot, I declare, yours was unie, and I wish you would so order it, that the world may be as wife as I upon that article: Mr. Pope wishes it too, and I believe there is not a more honest man in England, even without wit. But you regard us not.-----I was forty seven years old when I began to think of death, and the reflections upon it now begin when I wake in the morning, and end when I am going to fleep.---I writ to Mr. Pope and not to you. My birth, although fróm a family not undistinguished in its name, is many degrees inferior to your's; all my pretensions from perfon and parts infinitely fo; I a youngger fon of younger fons; you born to a great fortune: yet I fee you with all your advantages, funk to a degree that you could never have been without them: But yet I fee you as much esteemed, as much beloved, as much dreaded, and perhaps more (though it be almoft impoffible) than ever you were in highest exaltation---only I grieve like an Alderman that you are not fo rich. And yet, my Lord, I pretend to value money as little as you,

The Year of Queen Anne's Death.

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your

and

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and I will call five hundred witneffes (if you will take Irish witneffes) to prove it. I renounce your whole philosophy, because it is not your practice. By the figure of living, (if I used that expreffion to Mr. Pope) I do not mean the rade, but a suitableness to your mind; and as for the pleasure of giving, I know your foul suffers when you are debarr'd of it. Could you, when your own generosity and contempt of outward things (be not offended, it is no Ecclefiaftical but an Epictetian phrase) could you, when these have brought you to it, come over and live with Mr. Pope and me at the Deanery? I could almost wish the experiment were tried---No, God forbid, that ever fuch a scoundrel as Want should dare to approach you. But, in the mean time, do not brag, Retrenchments are not your talent. But, as òld Weymouth said to me in his Lordly Latin, Philofopha verba, ignava opera ; I wish you could learn Arithmetic, that three and two make five, and will never make more. My philofophical fpectacles which you advise me to, will tell me that I can live on 50 l. a year (wine excluded, which my bad health forces me to) but I cannot endure that Otium should be fine dignitate, ---My Lord, what I would have faid of Fame is meant of fame which a man enjoys in his life; because I cannot be a great Lord, I would acquire

acquire what is a kind of fubfidium, I would endeavour that my betters should seek me by the merit of fomething distinguishable, instead of my seeking them. The defire of enjoying it in after-times is owing to the spirit and folly of youth: but with age we learn to know the houfe is fo full, that there is no room for above one or two at most in an age, through the whole world. My Lord, I hate and love to write to you, it gives me pleasure, and kills me with melancholy. The D--- take stupidity, that it will not come to fupply the want of philosophy.

LETTER XLII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Oct. 31, 1729.

OU were fo careful of sending me the

You

Dunciad, that I have received five of them, and have pleased four friends. I am one of every body who approve every part of it, Text and Comment; but am one abftracted from every body, in the happiness of being recorded your friend, while wit, and humour, and politeness shall have any memorial among us. As for your octavo edition, we know nothing

of it, for we have an octavo of our own, which hath fold wonderfully, confidering our poverty, and dulness the confequence of it.

gone

I writ this poft to Lord B. and tell him in my letter, that, with a great deal of lofs for a frolick, I will fly as foon as build; I have neither years, nor fpirits, nor money, nor patience for fuch amusements. The frolick is off, and I am only 100 l. the poorer. But this kingdom is grown fo exceffively poor, that we wife men must think of nothing but getting a little ready money. It is thought there are not two hundred thousand pounds of fpecie in the whole ifland; for we return thrice as much to our Absentees, as we get by trade, and fo are all inevitably undone; which I have been telling them in print these ten years, to as little purpose as if it came from the pulpit. And this is enough for Irish politics, which I only mention, because it fo nearly touches myself. I muft repeat what, I believe, I have faid before, that I pity you much more than Mrs. Pope. Such a parent and friend hourly declining before your eyes is an object very unfit for health, and duty, and tender difpofition; and pray God it may not affect you too much. I am as much fatisfied that your additional 100 7. per Annum is for your life as if it were for ever. You have enough to leave your friends, I would

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your