I am able to write no more; deavour, which is too weak to

and this is my third enfinish the paper. I am,

my dearest friend, yours entirely, as long as I can write, or fpeak, or think.

J. SWIFT.

LETTER

LXXXVIII.

From Dr SWIFT.

I

Dublin, July 23. 1737.

my

Lord

Sent a letter to you some weeks which ago, Orrery inclosed in one of his, to which I received as yet no answer; but it will be time enough when his Lordship goes over, which will be, as he hopes, in about ten days; and then he will take with him "all "the letters I preferved of yours, which are not above twenty-five. I find there is a great chafm of some years, but the dates are more early than my two laft "journeys to England; which makes me imagine, that "in one of thofe journeys I carried over another cargo." But I cannot truft my memory half an hour; and my diforders of deafnefs and giddinefs increafe daily. So that I am declining as faft as it is eafily poffible for me, if I were a dozen years older.

WE have had your volume of letters, which, I am told, are to be printed here. Some of those who highly esteem you, and a few who know you perfonally, are grieved to find you make no diftinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the favage old Irish, (who are only the vulgar, and fome gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom): but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more civilized than many counties in England, and fpeak better English, and are much better bred. And they think it very hard, that an American, who is of the fifth generation from England, fhould be allowed to preferve that title, only because we have been told by fome of them, that their names are entered in fome parish in London. I have three or four coufins here who were born in Portugal, whofe parents took the

fame

fame care, and they are all of them Londoners. Dr Delany, who, as I take it, is of an Irish family, came to vifit me three days ago, on purpose to complain of those paffages in your letters. He will not allow fuch a difference between the two climates; but will affert that North Wales, Northumberland, Yorkshire, and the other northern hires, have a more cloudy ungenial air than any part of Ireland. In fhort, I am afraid your friends and admirers here will force you to make a palinody.

As for the other parts of your volume of letters, my opinion is, that there might be collected from them the beft fyftem that ever was wrote for the conduct of human life, at leaft to fhame all reasonable men out of their follies and vices. It is fome recommendation of this kingdom, and of the tafte of the people, that you are at least as highly celebrated here as you are at home. If you will blame us for flavery, corruption, atheism, and fuch trifles, do it freely; but include England, only with an addition of every other vice.— I wish you would give orders against the corruption of English by thofe fcribblers, who fend us over their trash in profe and verfe, with abominable curtailings and quaint modernisms.I am now daily expecting an end of life. I have lost all spirit, and every fcrap of health. I fometimes recover a little of my hearing, but my head is ever out of order. While I have any ability to hold a commerce with you, I will never be filent; and this chancing to be a day that I can hold a pen, I will drag it as long as I am able. Pray let my Lord Orrery see you often next to yourself, I love no man fo well; and tell him what I fay, if he vifits you. I have now done; for it is evening, and my head grows worse. May God always protect you, and preferve you long, for a pattern of piety and virtue.

FAREWEL, my deareft and almost only conftant friend. I am ever, at least in my esteem, honour, and affection to you, what I hope you expect me to be,

VOL. IV.

R

Yours, &c.

LET

LETTER

My dear friend,

From Dr SWIFT.

LXXXIX.

Dublin, Aug. 8. 1738.

Have yours of July 25.; and first, I desire you will years, and funk by public as well as personal vexations. I have entirely loft my memory, incapable of converfation by a cruel deafnefs, which has lasted almost a year, and I despair of any cure. I fay not this to increase your compaffion, (of which you have already too great a part), but as an excufe for my not being regular in my letters to you, and fome few other friends. I have an ill name in the poft-office of both kingdoms; which makes the letters addreffed to me not feldom mifcarry, or be opened and read, and then fealed in a bungling manner, before they come to my hands. Our friend Mrs B. is very often in my thoughts, and high in my esteem. I defire 'you will be the meffenger of my humble thanks and fervice to her. That fuperior univerfal genius you describe, whofe hand-writing I know towards the end of your letter, hath made me both proud and happy; but by what he writes, I fear he will be too foon gone to his forest abroad. He began in the Queen's time to be my patron, and then defcended to be my friend.

It is a great favour of heaven, that your health grows better by the addition of years. I have absolutely done with poetry for several years paft, and even at my best times I could produce nothing but trifles. I therefore reject your compliments on that score; and it is no compliment in me; for I take your fecond dialogue that you lately fent me, to equal almost any thing you ever writ; altho' I live fo much out of the world, that I am ignorant of the facts and perfons, which, I prefume, are very well known from Temple-bar to St James's; (I mean the court exclufive.)

"I can faithfully affure you, that every letter you "have favoured me with, thefe twenty years and more,

❝are

are fealed up in bundles, and delivered to Mrs W"a very worthy, rational, and judicious coufin of mine, "and the only relation whofe vifits I can fuffer. All "these letters fhe is directed to fend safely to you, upon my decease."

My Lord Orrery is gone with his Lady to a part of her estate in the north. She is a person of very good understanding, as any I know of her fex. Give me leave to write here a fhort answer to my Lord B.'s letter, in the last page of yours.

My dear Lord,

I am infinitely obliged to your Lordship for the honour of your letter, and kind remembrance of me. I do here confefs, that I have more obligations to your Lordship, than to all the world befides. You never deceived me, even when you were a great minifter of ftate and yet I love you ftill more, for your condefcending to write to me, when you had the honour to be an exile. I can hardly hope to live till you publifh your history, and am vain enough to wish that my name could be fqueezed in among the few fubalterns, quorum pars parva fui. If not, I will be revenged, and contrive fome way to be known to futurity, that I had the honour to have your Lordship for my best patron; and I will live and die, with the highest veneration and gratitude, your moft obedient, &c.

P. S. I will here, in a poftfcript, correa (if it be poffible) the blunders I have made in my letter. I fhewed my cousin the above letter; and fhe affures me, that a great collection of your*

my

and fealed, and in fome

letters to

me,

you,

R 2

are put up

f

It is written juft thus in the original. The book that is now printed, feems to be part of the collection here spoken of; as it contains ne only the letters of Mr Pope, but of Dr Swift, both to him and Mr Gay, which were returned him after Mr Gay's death: tho' any mention made by Mr Pope of the return or exchange of letters, has been induftriously fuppreffed in the publication, and only appears by fome of the answers. Dub. edit.

↑ See Lord Orrery's letter, in the next page.

I am, my most dear and honoured friend, entirely

I AM more and more convinced, that your letters are neither loft nor burnt; but who the Dean means by a safe hand in Ireland, is beyond my power of gueffing; tho' I am particularly acquainted with most, if not all, of his friends. As I knew you had the recovery of those letters at heart, I took more than ordinary pains to find out where they were; but my inquiries were to no purpofe; and, I fear, whoever has them, is too tenacious of them to difcover where they lie. "Mrs Wdid affure me, "The had not one of them; and feemed to be under great uneafinefs, that you should imagine they were left with her. She "likewife told me she had stopped the Dean's letter which gave $6 you that information; but believed he would write fuch another; and therefore defired me to affure you from her, that "fhe was totally ignorant where they were.'

་་

"

You may make what ufe you pleafe, either to the Dean, or any other perfon, of what I have told you. I am ready to testify it; and I think it ought to be known, " That the Dean fays they

"are delivered into a safe hand, and Mrs. W-* declares the has "them not. The confequence of their being hereafter published, may give uneafinels to fome of your friends, and of course "to you: fo I would do all in my power to make you entirely

86

eafy in that point."

This is the first time I have put pen to paper fince my late misfortune; and I should say, as an excufe for this letter, that it has coft me fome pain, did it not allow me an opportunity to affure you, that I am,

Marston, O&. 4. 1738.

Dear Sir,

This lady fince gave Mr Pope the ftrongest affurances, that he had used her utmost endeavours to prevent the publication; nay, went fo far as to fecrete the book, till it was commanded free her, and delivered to the Dublin printer. Whereupon her fon-in-law, D. Swift, Efq; infifted upon writing a preface, to justify Mr Pope from having any knowledge of it, and to lay it upon the corrupt practices of the printers in London; but this he would not agree to, as not knowing the truth of the falt. Pope.