firm it: but annual Acknowledgements at least are neceffary to preserve it: and I begin to suspect by your defrauding me of them, that you hope in time to difpute it, and to urge Prescription against me. I would not fay one word to you about myself (fince it is a fubject on which you appear to have no curiofity) was it not to try how far the contrast between Pope's fortune and manner of life, and mine, may be carried.

I have been, then, infinitely more uniform and lefs diffipated than when you knew me and cared for me. That Love which I used to scatter with fome profufion among the female kind, has been these many years devoted to one object. A great many misfortunes (for fo they are called, though fometimes very improperly) and a retirement from the world, have made that just and nice difcrimination between my Acquaintance and my Friends, which we have feldom fagacity enough to make for ourfelves; those infects of various hues, which used to hum and buz about me, while I ftood in the funfhine, have difappeared fince I lived in the fhade. No man comes to a Hermitage but for the fake of the Hermit; a few philosophical Friends come often to mine, and they are fuch as you would be glad to live with, if a dull climate and duller company have not altered you extremely from what you was nine years ago.

The hoarfe voice of Party was never heard in this quiet place; Gazettes and Pamphlets are banished from it, and if the Lucubrations of Ifaac Bickerstaff be admitted, this diftinction is owing to fome ftrokes by which it is judged that this illuftrious Philofopher had (like the Indian Fohu, the Grecian Pythagoras, the Perfian Zoroafter, and others his Precurfors

among the Zabians, Magians, and the Egyptian Seres) 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 foon awakened from that pleafing dream by the Greek and Roman Historians, 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 promife to finish, appears 5).

I am under no apprehenfion that a glut of Study and Retirement fhould 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 course of life; my Philofophy grows confirmed by habit, and if you and I meet again, I will extort this approbation from you; Fam non confilio bonus, fed more eo perductus, ut non tantnm rette facere poffim, fed nifi rette facere non poffim. The little incivilities I have met with 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 of the world is; others have cured me of my hopes, by shewing how precarious popular friend. ships are; all have cured me of furprize: In driving me out of party, they have driven me out of curfed company; and in ftripping me of Titles and Rank, and Eftate, and fuch trinklets, which every man that will may spare, they have given me that which no man can be happy without.

5) See the first note on Lett. V. of this Vol

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 personal friendships interest me in the affairs of it, and this principle extends my cares but a little way. Perfe&t 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 thofe 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 preserving. As foon as I leave this Town (which will be in a few days) I shall 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 must indeed with the former be in fome or other of the attitudes of those wooden men whom I have feen before a fwort-cutler's fhop in Germany: but even in these constrained postures the witty Rascal 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 asked, and

which he will send you, if you continue still to defire it. — Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy faults 1 love thee intirely; make an effort, and love me on with all mine.

Dublin, Sept. 20, 1723.

Returning from a fummer 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 fay, 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 Jullness 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 contempta mundi & fuga fæculi, unless a Poet grows weary of too much applaufe, as Minifters do of too much weight of business.

Your happiness is greater than your Merit, in chufing your Favourites so 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 Conftitu tion of Church and State, than a Christian at Conftan tinople; and you are so much the wiser and the happier, because both, Partiès will approve your poetry as long as you are known to be of neither.

Your notions of Friendship are new to me 6): I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well kuow 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 diftribute it in Pennyworths to thofe about me, and who displease me least; and fhould do the fame to my fellow prifoners 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 however I own is more dangerous, tho' not fo troublefome, as that of Fools. I have often endeavoured to establish a Friendship among all Men of Genius, and would fain have it done: they are feldom above three or four Contemporaries, and if they could be united, would drive the world before them. I think it was fo among the Poets in the time of Augustus: but Envy, and Party, and Pride, have hindered it among us. I do not include the Subalterns, of which you are feldom without a large Tribe. Under the name of Poets and Scriblers I fuppofe you mean the Fools

6) Yet they are the Chriftian notions,