chide that you never called upon him for hints? Is my Lord Bolingbroke at the moment I am writing, a planter, a philofopher, or a writer? Is Mr. Pultney in expectation of a fon, or my Lord Oxford of a new old Manufcript?

I bought your Opera to-day for fix-pence, a curfed print. I find there is neither dedication nor preface, both which wants I approve; it is in the grand gout.

We are as full of it pro modulo noftro as London can be; continually acting, and houses cramm'd, and the Lord Lieutenant feveral times there laughing his heart out. I did not understand that the scene of Locket and Peachum's quarrel was an imitation of one between Brutus and Caffius, till I was told it. I wish Mackheath, when he was going to be hang'd, had imitated Alexander the great when he was dying: I would have had his fellow-rogues defire his commands about a Succeffor, and he to answer, Let it be the most worthy, &c. We hear a million of ftories about the Opera, of the applaufe at the fong, That was level'd at me, when to great Ministers were in a box together, and all the world ftaring at them. I am heartily glad your Opera hath mended your purfe, though perhaps it may spoil your court.

Will you defire my Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Pultney, and Mr. Pope, to command you to buy an annuity with two thoufand pounds? that you may laugh at courts, and bid Ministers.

Ever preferve fome fpice of the Alderman, and prepare against Age and Dulness, and Sickness, and Coldness or Death of Friends. A Whore has a refource left, that the can turn bawd; but an old decay'd Poet is a creature abandon'd, and at mercy, when he can find none. Get me likewife Polly's Meffo tinto. Lord, how the school-boys at West

F

minfter, and University - lads adore you at this juncture! Have you made as many men laugh, as Minifters can make weep?

I will excufe Sir the trouble of a letter: When Ambassadors came from Troy to condole, with Tiberius upon the death of his Nephew, after two years; the Emperor answered, that he likewife condoled with them for the untimely death of Hector. I always loved and refpected him very much, and do ftill as much as ever; and it is a return fufficient, if he pleases to accept the offers of my most humble fervice.

The Beggar's Opera hath knock'd down Gulliver; I hope to fee Pope's Dulnefs knock down the Beggar's Opera, but not till it hath fully done its jobb..

To expofe vice, and make people laugh with innocence, does more public service than all the Minifters of state from Adam to Walpole, and fo adieu.

LETTER XXVIII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SwiFT.

POP

OPE charges himself with this letter; he has been here two days, he is now hurrying to London, he will hurry back to Twickenham in two days more, and before the end of the week he will be, for ought I know, at Dublin. In the mean time his i) Dulness grows and flourishes as if he was there already. It will indeed be a noble work: the many will stare at it, the few will fmile, and all

z) The -Dunclad.

his Patrons from Bickerstaff to Gulliver will rejoice, to fee themselves adorn'd in that immortal piece.

I hear that you have had fome return of your illness which carried you so suddenly from us (if indeed it was your own illness which made you in fuch hafte to be at Dublin.) Dear Swift take care of your health, I'll give you a receipt for it, à la Montagne, or which is better à la Bruyere. Nourisfer bien votre corps; ne le fatiguer jamais: laiffer rouiller l'efprit, meuble inutil, voire outil dangereux: Laiffer fonner vos cloches le matin pour eveiller les chanoines, et pour faire dormir le Doyen d'un fommeil doux et profond, qui lui procure de beaux fonges: Lever vous tard, et

aller à l'Eglife, pour vous faire payer d'avoir bien dormi et bien dejeuné. As to myself (a parfon about whom I concern myself very little) I muft fay a word or two out of complaifance to you. I am in my farm, and here I shoot strong and tenacious roots: I have caught hold of the earth (to ufe a Gardener's phrafe) and neither my enemies nor my friends will find it an eafy matter to tranfplant me again. Adieu, let me hear from you, at leaft of you: I love you for a thousand things, for none more than for the just esteem and love which you have for all the fons of Adam.

P. S. According to Lord Bolingbroke's account I fhall be at Dublin in three days. I cannot help adding a word, to defire you to expect my foul there with you by that time; but as for the jade of a body that is tack'd to it, I fear there will be no dragging it after. I affure you I have few friends here to de tain me, and no powerful one at Court abfolutely to forbid my journey. I am told the Gynocracy are of opinion, that they want no better writers than Cibber and the British journalist; so that we may live at quiet, and apply ourselves to our more abstruse

ftudles. The only Courtiers I know, or have the honour to call my friends, are John Gay and Mr. Bowry; the former is at prefent fo employed in the elevated airs of his Opera, and the latter in the exaltation of hls high dignity (that of her Majesty's Waterman) that I can scarce obtain a categorical anfwer from either to any thing I fay to 'em. But the Opera fucceeds extremely, to yours and my extreme fatisfaction, of which he promises this post to give you a full account. I have been in a worse condition of health than ever, and think my immortality is very near out of my enjoyment: fo it must be in you, and in pofterity, to make me what amends you can for dying young. Adieu. While I am, I am yours. Pray love me, and take care of yourself.

I

LETTER XXIX.

March. 23, 1727 -8.

Send you a very odd thing, a paper printed in Boston in New-England, wherein you'll find a real person, a member of their Parliament, of the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of that Traveller has travell'd thither, it has travell❜d very quick, to have folks chriften'd already by the name of the fuppofed Author. But if you object, that no child fo lately christen'd could be arrived at years of maturity to be elected into Parliament, I reply (to folve the Riddle) that the person is an Anabaptist, and not chriften'd till full age, which fets all right. However it be, the accident is very fingular, that thefe two names fhould be united.

Mr. Gay's Opera has been acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the whole feafon. So he has more than a fence about his thoufand pound 2): he'll foon be thinking of a fence about his two thoufand. Shall no one of us live as we would with each other to live? Shall he have no annuity, you no fettlement on this fide, and I no prospect of getting to you on the other? This world is made for Cæfar as Cato faid, for ambitious, falfe, or flattering people to domineer in: Nay they would not, by their good will, leave us our very books, thoughts, or words, in quiet. I defpife the world yet, I affure you, more than either Gay or you, and the Court more than all the rest of the world. As for those Scriblers for whom you apprehend I would fupprefs my Dulness (which by the way, for the future, you are to call by a more pompous name, The Dunciad) how much that neft of Hornets are my regard, will easily appear to you when you read the Treatise of the Bathos.

At all adventures, yours and my name fhall ftand. linked as friends to pofterity, both in verfe and profe, and (as Tully calls it) in confuetudine Studiorum. Would to God our perfons could but as well, and as furely, be infeparable! I find my other Tyes dropping from me: fome worn off, fome torn off, others relaxing daily: My greatest, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, Time is fhaking every moment, and

2) Before Mr. Gay had fenced this thousand pounds, he had a confultation with his friends about the difpofal of it. Mr. L. advifed him to intruft it to the funds, and live upon the intereft; Dr. Arbuthnot, to intruft it. to Providence, and live upon the principal; and Mr. Pope was for purchafing an annuity for life. In this uncertainty he could only fay witka the old man in Terence, feciflis probe :

Incertior fum multo, quam dudum.