of fpecie in the whole ifland; for we return thrice as much to our abfentees, as we get by trade, and so are all inevitably undone; which I have been telling them in print thefe ten years, to as little purpose as if it came from the pulpit. And this is enough for Irish politics, which I only mention, because it so nearly touches myfelf. I must repeat what, I believe, have faid before, that I pity you much more than Mrs Pope. Such a parent and friend hourly declining before your eyes, is an object very unfit for your health, and duty, and tender difpofition; and I pray God it may not affect you too much. I am as much fatisfied that your additional 100%. per annum is for your life as if it were for ever. have enough to leave your friends, I would not have them glad to be rid of you; and I fhall take care that none but my enemies will be glad to get rid of me. You have imbroiled me with Lord Babout the

You

figure of living, and the pleasure of giving. I am under the neceffity of fome little paltry figure in the ftation I am: but I make it as little as poffible. As to the other part, you are base, because I thought myself as great a giver as ever was of my ability; and yet in proportion you exceed, and have kept it till now a fecret even from me, when I wondered how you were able to live with your whole little revenue. Adieu.

L

C. -,who doth his duty of a good governor in inflaving this kingdom as much as he can, talks to me of you in the manner he ought.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr SWIFT.

Nov. 19. 1729. Find that you have laid afide your project of build

fland cum zephyris, et hirundine prima. I know not whether the love of fame increases as we advance in age; fure I am that the force of friendship does. I loved you almost twenty years ago: I thought of you as well as I do now; better was beyond the power of conception, or, to avoid an equivoque, beyond the extent of my ideas. Whether you are more obliged to me for

*

loving you as well when I knew you lefs, or for loving you as well after loving you fo many years, I fhall not determine. What I would fay is this: Whilft my mind grows daily more independent of the world, and feels lefs need of leaning on external objects, the ideas of friendship return oftener, they bufy me, they warm me more: is it that we grow more tender as the momentof our great feparation approaches? or is it that they who are to live together in another ftate, (for vera amicitia non nifi inter bonos), begin to feel more ftrongly that divine fympathy which is to be the great band of their future fociety. There is no one thought which fooths my mind like this. I encourage my imagination to purfue it, and am heartily afflicted when another faculty of the intellect comes boisterously in, and wakes me from fo pleasing a dream, if it be a dream. I will dwell no more on economics than I have done in my former letter. Thus much only I will fay, that otium cum dignitate is to be had with 500/. a year as well as with 5000: the difference will be found in the value of the man, and not in that of the estate. I do affure you, that I have never quitted the defign of collecting, revifing, improving, and extending feveral materials which are ftill in my power; and I hope that the time of fet-. ting myself about this laft work of my life is not far off. Many papers of much curiofity and importance are loft, and fome of them in a manner which would surprise and anger you. However, I fhall be able to convey feveral great truths to pofterity, fo clearly and fo authentically, that the Burnets and the Oldmixons of another age may rail, but not be able to deceive. Adieu, my friend. I have taken up more of this paper than belongs

Viz. Reafon. Tully (or, what is much the fame, his disciple) bferves fomething like this on the like occafion; where, fpeaking of Plato's famous book of the foul, he fays, Nefcio quomodo, dum lego, adfentior; cum pofui librum, et mecum ipfe de immortalitate animorum cæpi cogitare, adfenfio illa omnis elabitur. Cicero feems to have had but a confused notion of the cause which the letter-writer has here explained, namely, that the imagination is always ready to indulge fo flattering an idea, but feverer reafon corrects and difclaims it. As to RELIGION, that is out of the queftion; for Tully wrote to his few philofophic friends. Warb

belongs to me, fince Pope is to write to you. No matter: for, upon recollection, the rules of proportion are not broken; he will fay as much to you in one page, as I have faid in three. Bid him talk to you of the work he is about, I hope in good earnest, it is a fine one; and will be, in his hands, an original *. His fole complaint is, that he finds it too easy in the execution. This flatters his lazinefs; it flatters my judgment, who always thought, that (univerfal as his talents are) this is eminently and peculiarly his, above all the writers I know living or dead; I do not except Horace. Adieu.

T

LETTER XLV.

Nov. 28. 1729.

HIS letter (like all mine) will be a rhapfody; it is many years ago fince I wrote as a wit f. How many occurrences or informations must one omit, if one determined to fay nothing that one could not fay prettily? I lately received from the widow of one dead correfpondent, and the father of another, feveral of my own letters of about fifteen and twenty years old; and it was not unentertaining to myself to obferve, how and by what degrees I ceafed to be a witty writer ; as either my experience grew on the one hand, or my affection to my correfpondents on the other. Now, as I love you better than most I have ever met with in the world, and efteem you too the more, the longer I have compared you with the rest of the world; fo inevitably I write to you more negligently, that is, more openly, and what all but fuch as love one another will call writing worse. I fmile to think how Curl would be bit, were our epiftles to fall into his hands, and how glorioufly they would fall fhort of every ingenious reader's expectations?

You can't imagine what a vanity it is to me, to have fomething to rebuke you for in the way of econ❤my. I love the man that builds a houfe fubito ingenio, and makes a wall for a horfe; then cries, "We wife

* Effay on man.

He ufed to value himself on this particular. War.

"men

105 "men must think of nothing but getting ready money." I am glad you approve my annuity; all we have in this world is no more than an annuity; as to our own enjoyment: but I will increase your regard for my wifdom, and tell you, that this annuity includes alfo the life of another*, whofe concern ought to be as near me as my own, and with whom my whole prospects ought to finish. I throw my javelin of hope no farther, Cur brevi fortes jaculamur ævo-&c.

THE fecond (as it is called, but indeed the eighth) edition of the Dunciad, with fome additional notes and epigrams, fhall be fent you, if I know any opportunity; if they reprint it with you, let them by all means follow that octavo edition.-The Drapier's letters are again printed here, very laudably as to paper, print, &c.; for you know I difapprove Irish politics, (as my commentator tells you), being a ftrong and jealous subject of England. The lady you mention, you ought not to complain of for not acknowledging your prefent; fhe having lately received a much richer prefent from Mr Knight of the South-fea; and you are fenfible she cannot ever return it to one in the condition of an outlaw. It is certain, as he can never expect any favourt, his motive, must be wholly difinterested. Will not this reflection make you blush? Your continual deplorings of Ireland make me with you were here long enough to forget those scenes that fo afflict you: I am only in fear if you were, you would grow fuch a patriot here too, as not to be quite at eafe, for your love of old England. It is very poffible, your journey in the time I compute, might exactly tally with my intended one to you; and if you muft foon again go back, you would not be unattended. For the poor woman decays perceptibly every week; and the winter may too probably put an end to a very long, and a very irreproachable life. My conftant attendance on her does indeed affect my mind very much, and leffen extremely my defires of long life; fince I fee the best that can come of it is a miferable benediction. I look upon myself to

• His Mother's.

be

He was miftaken in this. Mr Knight was pardoned, and came home in the year 1742. Warb.

be many years older in two years fince you faw me: the natural imbecillity of my body, joined now to this acquired old age of the mind, makes me at least as old as you, and we are the fitter to crawl down the hill together: I only defire I may be able to keep pace with you. My first friendship at fixteen, was contracted with a man of feventy: and I found him not grave enough or confiftent enough for me though we lived well to his death. I fpeak of old Mr Wycherly; fome letters of whom (by the by) and of mine, the bookfellers have got and printed, not without the concurrence of a noble friend of mine and yours*. I don't much approve of it; tho' there is nothing for me to be ashamed of, because I will not be afhamed of any thing I do not do myself, or of any thing that is not immoral, but merely dull, (as for inftance, if they printed this letter I am now writing; which they eafily may, if the underlings at the post-office please to take a copy of it). I admire, on this confideration, your fending your last to me quite open, without a feal, wafer, or any closure whatever, manifefting the utter openness of the writer I would do the fame by this, but fear it would look like affectation to send two letters fo together.--I will fully represent to our friend, (and, I doubt not, it will touch his heart), what you fo feelingly fet forth as to the badness of your Burgundy, &c. He is an extreme honeft man; and indeed ought to be fo, confidering how very indiscreet and unreferved he is: but I do not ap prove this part of his character, and will never join with him in any of his idleneffes in the way of wit. You know my maxim, to keep as clear of all offence, as I am clear of all intereft in either party. I was once difpleafed before at you, for complaining to Mr*** of my not having a penfion, and am fo again at your naming it to a certain Lord. I have given proof in the course of my whole life, (from the time when I was in the friendship of Lord Bolingbroke and Mr Craggs, even to this when I am civilly treated by Sir R. Walpole), that I

never

* See the occafion, in the fecond and third paragraphs of the preface to the first volume of Pope's letters, the 7th of Warburton's edition of his works.