LETTER VII.

Mr Pope to Dr SWIFT.

Jan. 12. 1723.

Find a rebuke in a late Letter of yours, that both

ftings and pleaseth me extremely. Your faying that I ought to have writ a Poftfcript to my friend Gay's, makes me not content to write less than a whole Letter; and your feeming to take his kindly, gives me hopes you will look upon this as a fincere effect of Friendship. Indeed, as I cannot but own the Laziness with which you task me, and with which I may equally charge you, for both of us have had (and one of us hath both had and given *) a Surfeit of writing; fo I really thought you would know yourself to be fo certainly intitled to my Friendship, that it was a poffeffion you could not imagine ftood in need of any further Deeds of Writings to affure you of it.

Whatever you feem to think of your withdrawn and separate state at this diftance, and in this Abfence, Dean Swift lives ftill in England, in every place and company where he would chufe to live, and I find him in all the Conversations I keep, and in all the Hearts in which I defire any fhare.

We have never met these many years without mention of you. Befides my old Acquaintance, I have found that all my friends of a later date are fuch as were yours before: Lord Oxford, Lord Harcourt, Alluding to his large work on Homer.

and Lord Harley may look upon me as one entailed upon them by you: Lord Bolingbroke is now returned (as I hope) to take me with all his other Hereditary Rights and indeed, he seems grown fo much a Philofopher, as to fet his heart upon some of them as little as upon the Poet you gave him. It is fure my ill fate, that all those I moft loved, and with whom I most lived, must be banished: After both of you left England, my constant Hoft was the Bishop of* Rochester. Sure this is a nation that is curfedly afraid of being over-run with too much Politeness, and cannot regain one great Genius, but at the expence of another. I tremble for my Lord Peterborow (whom I now lodge with) he has too much Wit, as well as Courage, to make a folid General: and if he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banish himself. This leads me to give you fome account of the manner of my life and Converfation, which has been infinitely more various and dissipated, than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all Sexes, Parties, and Profeffions. A Glut of Study and Retirement in the first part of my life caft me into this; and this, I begin to fee, will throw me again into Study and Retirement. The civilities I have met with from oppofite Setts of people, have hinder'd me from being violent or four to any Party; but at the fame time the Obfervations and Experiences I cannot but have collected, have made me less fond of, and lefs furprized at, any: I am therefore the more afflicted and the more angry *Dr Atterbury.

at the Violences and Hardships I fee practifed by either. The merry Vein you knew me in, is funk into a Turn of Reflection, that has made the world pretty indifferent to me; and yet I have acquired a Quietness of mind, which by fits improves into a certain degree of Chearfulness, enough to make me just so good humoured as to wish that world well. My Friendships are encreased by new ones, yet no part of the warmth I felt for the old is diminished. Aversions I have none, but to Knaves (for Fools I have learned to bear with) and fuch I cannot be commonly civil to; for I think those men are next to Knaves who converse with them. The greatest Man in power of this fort fhall hardly make me bow to him, unless I had a perfonal obliga-. tion, and that I will take care not to have. The top pleasure of my life is one I learned from you both how to gain and how to ufe; the Freedom of Friendship with men much my Superiors. To have pleased great men, according to Horace, is a praise; but not to have flattered them, and yet not have displeased them, is a greater. I have carefully avoided all Intercourfe with Poets and Scriblers, unless where by great chance I have found a modest one. By these means I have had no quarrels with any perfonally; none have been Enemies, but who were alfo Strangers to me, there is no great need of an Eclairciffement with fuch, whatever they writ or said, I never retaliated, not only never feeming to know, but often really never VOL. VI.

T

and as

knowing, any thing of the matter. There are very few things that give me the Anxiety of a Wish; the ftrongest I have would be to pafs my days with you, and a few fuch as you: But Fate has difperfed them all about the world; and I find to wish it, is as vain, as to wish to see the Millennium and the Kingdom of the Juft upon earth.

If I have finned in my long filence, confider there is one to whom you yourself have been as great a finAs foon as you fee his hand, you will learn to do me justice, and feel in your heart how long a man may be filent to those he truly loves and refpects.

ner.

I

LETTER VIII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr SWIFT.

Am not fo lazy as Pope, and therefore you must

not expect from me the fame indulgence to Lazinefs; in defending his own caufe, he pleads yours, and becomes your Advocate while he appeals to you as his Judge: You will do the fame on your part; and I, and the rest of your common Friends, fhall have great justice to expect from two fuch righteous Tribunals: You refemble perfectly the two Ale-houfe-keepers in Holland, who were at the fame time Burgomafters of the Town, and taxed one another's Bills alternately, I declare before hand I will not ftand to the award; my Title to your Friendship is good, and wants neither Deeds nor Writings to confirm it: but annual Acknowledgments at least are neceffary to preferve it:

and I begin to fufpect by your defrauding me of them, that you hope in time to difpute it, and to urge Prefcription 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 less 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 seldom fagacity enough to make for ourfelves; thofe infects of various hues, which used to hum and buz about me, while I stood in the fun-fhine, have difappeared fince I lived in the shade. No man comes to a Hermitage but for the fake of the Hermit; a few philofophical 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 distinction is owing to some strokes by which it is judged that this Illuftrious Philofopher