For the two large ftrands just at two ends of the town are as firm and dry in winter as in fummer. There are at leaft fix or eight gentlemen of fenfe, learning, good humour and tafte, able and defirous to please you; and orderly females, fome of the better fort, to take care of you. These were the motives that I have frequently made use of to entice you hither. And there would be no failure among the best people here, of any honours that could be done you. As to myself, I declare, my health is fo uncertain, that I dare not venture amongst you at present. I hate the thoughts of London, where I am not rich enough to live otherwife than by fhifting, which is now too late. Neither can I have conveniencies in the country for three horfes 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 rafcally waggoners or coach-men, 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 faves, rather than a flave among freemen. Then, I walk the streets in peace without being juftled, nor ever without a thousand bleffings from my friends the vulgar. I am Lord Mayor of 120 houses, I am absolute Lord of the greatest Cathedral in the kingdom, am at peace with the neigh

bouring Princes, the Lord Mayor of the city, and the Archbishop 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 serioufness, that these advantages contribute to my eafe, and therefore I value them. And in one part of your letter relating to my Lord B and yourself, you agree with me entirely, about the indifference, the love of quiet, the care of hearth, &c. that grow upon men in years. And if you difcover those inclinations in my Lord and yourself, what can you expect from me, whose health is so precarious? and yet, at your or his time of life, I could have leap'd over the moon.

LETTER LXIX.

Sept. 1. 1733.

I

Have every day wifh'd to write to you, to say 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 fhow 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 fome whom you love, and who love you: yet they receive no proofs of that af fection from you, and they give none of it to you. There is a great gulph between. In carneft, I would go a thousand miles by land to see you, but the sea 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 breaft) would kill me: and if I did not die of that, I muft of the exceffive eating and drinking of your hofpitable 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 over-praised and over-fed. 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 serving 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 thofe 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 happi. nefs; 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 loss has turned my frame of thinking. The habit of a whole life is a stronger thing than all the reafon in the world. I know I ought to be easy, and to be free; but I am dejected, I am confined: my whole amusement is in reviewing my past life, not in laying plans for my future. I wish you cared as little for popular applause as 1 ; as little for any nation, in contradistinction to others, as I: and then I fancy, you that are not afraid of the sea, you that are a stronger man at sixty than ever I was at twenty, would come and see several people who are (at laft) like the primitive christians, of one soul and of one mind. The day is come, which I have often wished, but never thought to fee; when every mortal, that I efteem, 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.

LETTER LXX.

Jan. 6. 1734.

I

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 feparated almost as

eternally by Abfence, checks me to that degree, that it takes away in a manner the pleasure (which yet I · feel very fenfibly 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 published) my Epiftle to Lord Cobhain, part of my Opus Magnum, and the laft Effay on Man, both which, I conclude, will be grateful to your bookfeller, 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 fame which women and children use, a pin to scratch, and a squirt to befpatter: I writ a fort of anfwer, but was afhamed to enter the lifts with him, and after fhewing it to fome people, fupprefs'd it: otherwise 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 be fure almost all those 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 a half-wit to love a true wit, and too much half honeft, to esteem any entire merit. I hope and think he hates me too, and I will do my beft