as foon as it could come.

They are printing it

in a small octavo. The curious are looking out, fome for flattery, some for Ironies in it; the four folks think they have found out fome: But your admirers here, I mean every man of taste, affect to be certain, that the Profession of friendship to Me in the same poem, will not fuffer you to be thought a Flatterer. My happiness is that you are too far engaged, and in spite of you the ages to come will celebrate me, and know you were a friend who loved and esteemed me, although I dyed the object of Court and Party hatred.

Pray, who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the Epic Poem call'd Leonidas, which is re-printing here, and hath great vogue? We have frequently good Poems of late from London. I have just read one upon Conversation, and two or three others. But the croud do not incumber you, who, like the Orator or Preacher, stand aloft, and are seen above the rest, more than the whole assembly below.

I am able to write no more; and this is my third endeavour, which is too weak to finish the paper. I am, my dearest friend, yours entirely, as long as I can write, or speak, or think.

J. SWIFT.

LETTER

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LETTER LXXXVII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Dublin, July 23, 1737

Sent a letter to you fome weeks ago, which my Lord Orrery inclosed in one of his, to which I receiv'd as yet no answer, but it will be time enough when his Lordship goes over, which will be, as he hopes, in about ten days, and then he will take with him "all the letters " I preferved of yours, which are not above "twenty-five. I find there is a great chasm of " some years, but the dates are more early than " my twolastjourneys to England, which makes

me imagine, that in one of those journeys I " carried over another Cargo." But I cannot trust my memory half an hour; and my disorders of deafness and giddiness increase daily. So that I am declining as fast as it is easily possible for me, if I were a dozen years older.

We have had your volume of letters, which, I am told, are to be printed here: Some of those who highly esteem you, and a few who know you personally, are grieved to find you make no diftinction between the English Gentry of this Kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some Gentlemen who

live in the Irish parts of the kingdom) but the English Colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more civilized than many Counties in England, and speak better English, and are much better bred. And they think it very hard, that an American who is of the fifth generation from England, should be allowed to preferve that title, only because we have been told by fome of them that their names are entered in fome parish in London. I have three or four Coufins here who were born in Portugal, whose parents took the same care, and they are all of them Londoners. Dr. Delany, who, as I take it, is of an Irish family, came to visit me three days ago, on purpose to complain of those pafsages in your Letters; he will not allow fuch a difference between the two climates, but will affert that North - Wales, Northumberland Yorkshire, and the other Northern Shires have a more cloudy ungenial air than any part of Ireland. In short, I am afraid your friends and admirers here will force you to make a Palinody.

As for the other parts of your volume of Letters, my opinion is, that there might be collected from them the best System that ever was wrote for the Conduct of human life, at least to shame all reasonable men out of their

Follies and Vices. It is fome recommenda

tion of this Kingdom, and of the taste of the people, that you are at least as highly celebrated here as you are at home. If you will blame us for Slavery, Corruption, Atheifm, and such trifles, do it freely, but include England, only with an addition of every other Vice.---I wish you would give orders against the corruption of English by those Scriblers, who send us over their trash in Prose and Verse, with abominable curtailingsand quaint modernifms.-----I am now daily expecting an end of life: I have lost all spirit, and every scrap of health; I sometimes recover a little of my hearing, but my head is ever out of order. While I have any ability to hold a commerce with you, I will never be filent, and this chancing to be a day that I can hold a pen, I will drag it as long as I am able. Pray let my Lord Orrery fee you often; next to yourself I love no man so well; and tell him what I say, if he vi fits you. I have now done, for it is evening, and my head grows worse. May God always protect you, and preferve you long for a pattern of Piety and Virtue.

Farewel, my dearest and almost only conftant friend. I am ever, at least in my esteem, honour and affection to you, what I hope you expect me to be,

Yours, &c.

LETTER

LETTER LXXXVIII.

From Dr. SWIFT.

Dublin, Aug. 8, 1738.

My dear Friend, I Have yours of July 25, and first I defire you will look upon me as a man worn with years, and funk by public as well as personal vexations. I have entirely loft my memory, uncapable of conversation by a cruel deafness, which has lasted almost a year, and I despair of any cure. I say not this to encrease your compaffion (of which you have already too great a part) but as an excuse for my not being regular in my Letters to you, and fome few other friends. I have an ill name in the Poft-office of both Kingdoms, which makes the Letters addressed to me not feldom miscarry, or be opened and read, and then fealed in a bungling manner before they come to my hands. Our Friend Mrs. B. is very often in my thoughts, and high in my esteem; I defire, you will be the messenger of my humble thanks and fervice to her. That fuperior universal Genius you describe, whose hand-writing I know towards the end of your Letter, hath made me both proud and happy; but by what he writes I fear he will be too foon gone to his Forest abroad. He began in the Queen's time to be my Patron, and then descended to be my Friend. VOL. IX.

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