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which is now too late. Neither can I have conveniences in the country for three horses and two fervants, and many others, which I have here at hand. I am one of the governors of all the hackney - coaches, carts, and carriages round this town, who dare not infult me, like your rascally waggoners or coachmen, but give me the way; nor is there one Lord or Squire for a hundred of yours, to turn me out of the road, or run over me with their coaches and fix. Thus, I make fome advantage of the public poverty, and give you the reasons for what I once writ, why I chufe to be a freeman among flaves, rather than a flave among freemen. Then, I walk the streets in peace without being juftled, nor ever without a thoufand bleffings from my friends the vulgar. I am Lord Mayor of 120 houses, I am abfolute Lord of the greatest Cathedral in the kingdom, am at peace with the neighbouring Princes, the Lord Mayor of the city, and the Arch-bishop of Dublin, only the latter, like the K. of France, fometimes attempts encroachments on my dominions, as old Lewis did upon Lorrain. In the midst of this raillery, I can tell you with feriousness, that these advantages contribute to my ease, and therefore I value them. And in one part of your letter relating to my Lord Band yourself, you agree with me entirely, about the indifference, the love of quiet, the care of health, &c. that grow upon men in years. And if you difcover those inclinations in my Lord and yourself, what can you expect from me, whofe health is fo precarious? and yet at your or his time of life, I could have leap'd over the moon.

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LETTER XXI.

September 1, 1733.

Have every day wifh'd to write to you, to fay a thousand things; and yet, I think, I should not have writ to you now, if I was not fick of writing any thing, fick of myself, and (what is worse) fick of my friends too. The world is become too busy for me; every body is fo concerned for the public, that all private enjoyments are loft, or dif-relifh'd. I write more to show you I am tired of this life, than to tell you any thing relating to it. I live as I did, I think as I did, I love you as I did; but all these are to no purpose: the world will not live, think, or love, as I do. I am troubled for, and vexed at, all my friends by turns. Here are some whom you love, and who love you: yet they receive no proofs of that affection from you, and they give none of it to you. There is a great gulph between. In earnest, I would go a thousand miles by land to fee you, but the fea I dread. My ailments are fuch, that I really believe a fea - fickness (confidering the oppreffion of colical pains, and the great weakness of my breast) would kill me: and if I did not die of that, I must of the exceffive eating and drinking of your hospitable town, and the exceffive flattery of your most poetical country. I hate to be cramm'd, either way.. Let your hungry Poets, and your rhyming Poets digeft it, I cannot. I like much better to be abused and half ftarved, than to be fo overpraised and overfed. Drown Ireland! for having caught you, and for having kept you: I only referve a little charity for her, for knowing your value, and esteeming you:

You are 'the only Patriot I know, who is not hated for ferving his country. The man who drew your Character and printed it here, was not much in the wrong in many things he faid of you: yet he was a very impertinent fellow, for faying them in words quite different from those you had yourself employed before on the fame fubject: for furely to alter your words is to prejudice them; and I have been told, that a man himself can hardly fay the fame thing twice over with equal happinefs; Nature is fo much a better thing than artifice.

I have written nothing this year: It is no affectation to tell you, my Mother's lofs has turned my frame of thinking. The habit of a whole life is a ftronger thing than all the reafon in the world. I know I ought to be eafy, and to be free; but I am dejected, I am confined: my whole amusement is in reviewing my paft life, not in laying plans for my future. I wish you cared as little for popular applaufe as I; as little for any nation, in contradiftinction to others, as I: and then I fancy, you that are not afraid of the fea, you that are a stronger man at fixty than ever I was at twenty, would come and fee several people who are (at last) like the primitive christians, of one foul and of one mind. The day is come, which I have often wifhed, but never thought to fee; when every mortal, that I esteem, is of the fame fentiment in Politics and in Religion.

Adieu. All you love, are yours; but all are busy, except (dear Sir) your fincere friend.

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LETTER XXII.

Jan. 6, 1734.

Never think of you and can never write to you,

now, without drawing many of those short fighs of which we have formerly talk'd: The reflection both of the friends we have been depriv'd of by Death, and of those from whom we are separated almost as eternally by Absence, checks me to that degree that it takes away in a manner the pleasure (which yet I feel very sensibly too) of thinking I am now converfing with you. You have been filent to me as to your Works; whether those printed here are, or are not genuine? but one, I am fure, is yours; and your method of concealing yourself puts me in mind of the Indian bird I have read of, who hides his head in a hole, while all his feathers and tail stick out. You'll have immediately by feveral franks (even before 'tis here publifh'd) my Epiftle to Lord Cobham, part of my Opus Magnum, and the last Effay on Man, both which, I conclude, will be gratefull to your bookseller, on whom you please to bestow them fo early. There is a woman's war declar'd against me by a certain Lord; his weapons are the same which women and children use, a pin to scratch, and a fquirt to befpatter: I writ a fort of answer, but was afhamed to enter the lifts with him, and after shewing it to some people, suppress'd it: otherwife it was such as was worthy of him and worthy of me. I was three weeks this autumn with Lord Peterborow, who rejoices in your doings, and always fpeaks with the greatest affection of you. I need not tell you who elfe do the fame; you may

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fure almost all thofe whom I ever fee, or defire to fee. I wonder not that B paid you no fort of civility while he was in Ireland: he is too much halfhonest, to esteem any entire merit. I hope and think he hates me too, and I will do my best to make him he is fo infupportably infolent in his civility to me when he meets me at one third place, that I muft affront him to be rid of it. That ftri&t neutrality as to public parties, which I have conftantly obferv'd in all my writings, I think gives me the more title to attack fuch men, as flander and belye my character in private, to those who know me not. Yet even this is a liberty I will never take, unless at the fame time they are Pefts of private fociety, or mischievous members of the public, that is to fay, unless they are enemies to all men as well as to me. - Pray write to me when you can: If ever I can come to you, I will: if not, may Providence be our friend and our guard thro' this fimple world, where nothing is valuable, but fenfe and friendship. Adieu, dear Sir, may health attend your years, and then may many years be added to you.

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P. S. I am juft now told, a very curious Lady intends to write to you to pump you about fome poems faid to be yours. Pray tell her, that you have not answered me on the fame queftions, and that I fhall take it as a thing never to be forgiven from you, if you tell another what you have conceal'd from me.

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