LETTER XXII.

March 8. 1726-7.

M

R Stopford will be the bearer of this letter, for whofe acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you: and I think the acquaintance of fo valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the least obligations.

Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigioufly pleased with this joint-volume, in which methinks we look like friends, fide-by-side, serious and merry by turns, converfing interchangeably, and walking down hand-in-hand to pofterity: not in the stiff forms of learned Authors, flattering each other, and setting the rest of mankind at nought; but in a free, unimportant, natural, eafy manner; diverting others just as we diverted ourselves. The third volume confifts of Verses; but I would chufe to print none but such as have fome peculiarity, and may be diftinguifh'd for ours, from other writers. There's no end of making Books, Solomon said, and above of all making Mifcellanies, which all men can make. For unless there be a character in every piece, like the mark of the elect, I should not care to be one of the Twelve-thousand signed.

You receiv'd, I hope, fome commendatory verses from a Horse and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic Epistle of Mrs Gulliver. The Bookfeller would fain have printed 'em before the fecond Edition of the Book, but I would not permit it without your approbation: nor do I much like them. You fee how much

like a Poet I write, and yet if you were with us, you'd be deep in Politics. People are very warm, and very angry, very little to the purpose, but therefore the more warm and the more angry: Non noftrum eft, Tantas componere lites. I ftay at Twitnam, without fo much as reading news-papers, votes, or any other paltry Pamphlets: Mr Stopford will carry you a whole parcel of them, which are fent for your diversion, but not imitation. For my own part, methinks I am at Glubdubdrib with none but ancients and spirits about me.

I am rather better than I use to be at this season, but my hand (though, as you fee, it has not loft its cunning) is frequently in very aukward fenfations, rather than pain. But to convince you it is pretty well, it has done fome mischief already, and just been strong enough to cut the other hand, while it was aiming to prune a fruit-tree.

Lady Bolingbroke has writ you a long, lively letter, which will attend this: She has very bad health, he very good. Lord Peterborow has writ twice to you ; we fancy fome letters have been intercepted, or loft by accident. About ten thousand things I want to tell you; I wish you were as impatient to hear them; for, if fo, you would, you must come early this fpring. Adieu. Let me have a line from you. I am vex'd at lofing Mr Stopford as foon as I knew him: but I thank God I have known him no longer. If every man one begins to value muft fettle in Ireland, pray make me know no more of 'em, and I forgive you this one.

LETTER XXIII.

Oct. 2. 1727.

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T is a perfect trouble to me to write to you, and your kind letter left for me at Mr Gay's affected me fo much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what av to say to you; I only feel that I wish you well in ev'ry circumftance of life; that'tis almoft as good to be T: hated as to be loved, confidering the pain it is to minds of any tender turn, to find themselves fo utterly impotent to do any good or give any ease to those who deferve moft from us. I would very fain know, as foon as you recover your complaints, or any part of them. Would to God I could eafe any of them, or had been able even to have alleviated any! I found I was not, and truly it grieved me. I was forry to find you could think yourself easier in any house than in mine, tho' at the fame time I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it feem'd to want that tendernefs. I can't explain my meaning, perhaps you know it: But the best way of convincing you of my indulgence, will be, if I live, to vifit you in Ireland, and act there as much in my own way as you did here in yours. I will not leave your roof, if I am ill. To your bad health I fear there was added some disagreeable news from Ireland, which might occafion your fo. fudden departure: For the laft time I faw you, you affured me you would not leave us this whole winter, unless your health grew better, and I don't find it did fo. I never comply'd fo unwillingly in my life with

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any friend as with you, in ftaying fo entirely from you: nor could I have had the conftancy to do it, if you had not promised that before you went, we should meet, I have given and you would fend to us all to come. your remembrances to those you mention in yours: we are quite forry for you, I mean for ourfelves. I hope, as you do, that we shall meet in a more durable and more fatisfactory ftate; but the lefs fure I am of that, the more I would indulge it in this. We are to believe, we shall have something better than even a friend, there, but certainly here we have nothing fo good. Adieu for this time; may you find friend you go every to as pleas'd and happy, as every friend you went from Yours, &c. is forry and troubled.

LETTER XXIV.

From Dr SWIFT.

Dublin, Oct. 12. 1727.

I

Have been long reafoning with myfelf upon the condition I am in, and in conclufion have thought it best to return to what fortune hath made my home; I have there a large house, and fervants and convenienand I have cies about me. I may be worse than I am, no where to retire. I therefore thought it beft to return to Ireland, rather than go to any distant place in England. Here is my maintainance, and here my convenience. If it pleases God to restore me to my health, I fhall readily make a third journey; if not, we must part as all human creatures have parted.

You are the beft and kindest friend in the world, and I know nobody alive or dead to whom I am fo much obliged; and if ever you made me angry, it was for your too much care about me. I have often wished that God Almighty would be so easy to the weakness of mankind, as to let old friends be acquainted in another state; and if I were to write an Utopia for heaven, that would be one of my fchemes. This wildness you must allow for, because I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be fick here, without the vexation of making my friends uneasy; yet my giddinefs alone would not have done, if that unfociable comfortless deafnefs had not quite tired me. And E believe I fhould have returned from the Inn, if I had not feared it was only a fhort. intermiffion, and the year was late, and my licence expiring. Surely, befides all other faults, I fhould be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and kindness. But it hath plea fed God that you are not in a state of health, to be mortified with the care and fickness of a friend. Two fick friends never did well together; fuch an office is fitter for fervants and humble companions, to whom it is wholly indifferent whether we give them trouble or no. The cafe would be quite otherwife if you were with me; you could refufe to fee any body, and here is a large houfe where we need not hear each o ther if we were both fick. I have a race of orderly elderly people of both fexes at command, who are of no confequence, and have gifts proper for attending