blot out four, and alter eight. I have brought in you and my other friends, as well as enemies and detractors. It is a great comfort to fee how corruption and ill conduct are inftrumental in uniting Virtuous perfons and Lovers of their country of all denominations: Whig and Tory, High and Lowchurch, as foon as they are left to think freely, all joining in opinion. If this be difaffection, pray God fend me always among the difaffected! and I heartily wish you joy of your scurvy treatment at Court, which hath given you leisure to cultivate both public and private Virtue, neither of them likely to be foon met with within the walls of St. James's or Westminster. But I must here difmifs you, that I may pay my acknowledgments to the Duke for the great honour he hath done me. My Lord, I could have fworn that my Pride would be always able to preserve me from Vanity; of which I have been in great danger to be guilty for fome months paft, first by the conduct of my Lady Duchefs, and now by that of your Grace, which had like to finish the work: And I should have certainly gone about shewing my letters under the charge of secrecy to every blab of my acquaintance; if I could have the leaft hope of prevailing on any of them to believe that a man in fo obfcure a corner, quite thrown out of the prefent world, and within a few steps of the next, fhould receive fuch condefcending invitations, from two fuch perfons, to whom he is an utter ftranger, and who know no more of him than what they have heard by the partial representations of a friend. But in the mean time, I muft defire your Grace not to flatter yourself, that I waited for Your Confent to accept the invitation. I must be ignorant indeed not to know, that the Duchess, ever since you met, kath been most politickly employ'd in encreasing those forces, and sharpning those arms with which fhe fubdued you at first, and to which, the braver and the wifer you grow, you will more and more fubmit. Thus I knew myself on the secure fide, and it was a mere piece of good manners to infert that claufe, of which you have taken the advantage. But as I cannot forbear informing your Grace that the Duchefs's great fecret in her art of government, hath been to reduce both your wills into one; fo I am content, in due obfervance to the forms of the world, to return my most humble thanks to your Grace for so great a favour as you are pleased to offer me, and which nothing but impoffibilities fhall prevent me from receiving, fince I am, with the greatest reason, truth, and respect, my Lord, your Grace's most obedient, &c. Madam, I have confulted all the learned in occult fciences of my acquaintance, and have fate up eleven nights to difcover the meaning of these two hieroglyphical lines in your Grace's hand at the bottom of the laft Aimsbury letter, but all in vain. Only 'tis agreed, that the language is Coptic, and a very profound Behmift affures me, the ftyle is poetic, containing an invitation from a very great perfon of the female sex to a strange kind of man whom she never faw; and this is all I can find, which after fo many former invitations, will ever confirm me in that respect, wherewith I am, Madam, your Grace's most obedient, &c. You LETTER VIII. Mr. GAY to Dr. SwIFT. Decemb. 1, 1731. OU us'd to complain that Mr. Pope and I would not let you speak: you may now be even with me, and take it out in writing. If you don't fend to me now and then, the post-office will think me of no confequence, for I have no correfpondent but you. You may keep as far from us as you please you cannot be forgotten by thofe who ever knew you, and therefore please me by sometimes fhewing that I am not forgot by you. I have nothing to take me off from my friendship to you: I feek no new acquaintance, and court no favour; I fpend no fhillings in coaches or chairs to levees or great vifits, and, as I don't want the affiftance of fome that I formerly convers'd with, I will not fo much as feem to feek to be a dependant. As to my ftudies, I have not been entirely idle, though I cannot fay that I have yet perfected any thing. What I have done is fomething in the way of thofe fables I have already publifh'd. All the money I get is by faving, so that by habit there may be fome hopes (if I grow richer) of my becoming a mifer. All mifers have their excuses; the motive to my parfimony is independance. If I were to be reprefented by the Duchefs (fhe is fuch a downright niggard for me) this character might not be allow'd me; but I really think I am covetous enough for any who lives at the court-end of the town, and who is as poor as myself: for I don't pretend that I am eqnally saving with S―k, Mr. Lewis defired you might be told that he hath five pounds of yours in his hands, which he fancies you may have forgot, for he will hardly allow that a Verfe- man can have a just knowledge of his own affairs. When you got rid of your law-fuit, I was in hopes that you had got your own, and was free from every vexation of the law; but Mr. Pope tells me you are not entirely out of your perplexity, though you have the fecurity now in your own poffeffion; but ftill your case is not so bad as Captain Gulliver's, who was ruined by having a decree for him with cofts. I have had an injunction for me against piratingbookfellers, which I am fure to get nothing by, and will, I fear, in the end drain me of fome money. When I began this profecution, I fancy'd there would be fome end of it; but the law ftill goes on, and 'tis probable I shall some time or other see an Attorney's bill as long as the Book. Poor Duke Disney is dead, and hath left what he had among his friends, among whom are Lord Bolingbroke 500 1. Mr. Pelham 500 1. Sir William Wyndham's youngest son, 500 1. Gen. Hill, 500. Lord Maffam's fon, 500 l. You have the good wishes of those I converse with; they know they gratify me, when they remember you; but I really think they do it purely for your own fake. I am fatisfied with the love and friendfhip of good men, and envy not the demerits of those who are most confpicuously distinguish'd. Therefore as I fet a juft value upon your friendship, you cannot please me more than letting me now and then know that you remember me (the only fatisfaction of diftant friends!) P. S. Mr. Gay's is a good letter, mine will be a very dull one; and yet what you will think the worst of it, is what fhould be its excufe, that I write in a head-ach that has lafted three days. I am never ill - but I think of your ailments, and repine that they mutually hinder our being together; tho' in one point I am apt to differ from you, for you shun your friends when you are in those circumstances, and I defire them; your way is the more generous, mine the more tender. Lady - took your letter very kindly, for I had prepared her to expect no answer under a twelve-month; but kindness perhaps is a word not applicable to courtiers. However fhe is an extraordinary woman there, who will do you common justice. For God's fake why all this fcruple about Lord B-'s keeping your horfes, who has a park; or about my keeping you on a pint of wine a day? We are infinitely richer than you imagine; John Gay shall help me to entertain you, tho' you come like King Lear with fifty knights- Tho' fuch profpects as I wish, cannot now be formed for fixing you with us, time may provide better before you part again: the old Lord may die; the benefice may drop, or, at worst, you may carry me into Ireland. You will fee a work of Lord B 's and one of mine: which, with a juft neglect of the prefent age, confult only pofterity; and, with a noble fcorn of politics, aspire to philofophy. I am glad you refolve to meddle no more with the low concerns and interests of Parties, even of Countries (for Countries are but larger parties) Quid verum atque decens curare, et rogare, nostrum sit. I am much pleased with your design upon Rochefoucault's maxim, pray finish it 5). I am happy whenever you join our names together: fo would Dr. Arbuthnot be, but at this time he can be pleas'd with nothing for his darling fon is dying in all 5) The Poem on his own death, formed upon a maxim of Rochefoucault. It is one of the best of his Performances. But very characteristic. |