case your lordship will please to remember in the midst of your resentments that you are to speak to a clergyman, and not to a footman.

I am your lordship's most obedient,

humble servant,

FROM MR PRIOR.

JON, SWIFT.

Westminster, Dec. 8, 1719.

SIR,

HAVING spent part of my summer very agreeably in Cambridgeshire with dear Lord Harley, I am returned without him to my own palace in Duke Street, whence I endeavour to exclude all the tumult and noise of the neighbouring court of requests, and to live aut nihil agendo aut aliud agendo, till he comes to town. But there is worse than this yet, I have treated Lady Harriot* at Cambridge (good God! a fellow of a college treat!) and spoke verses to her † in a gown and cap! What! the

* Lady Harriot Harley, only daughter of Edward, Lord Harley; afterward Duchess of Portland.-B.

+ These verses here follow, as they do not occur in the common editions of Prior's works.

Verses spoken to Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles Harley, Countess of Oxford, in the library of St John's College, Cambridge, November 9, 1719..

MADAM,

SINCE Anna visited the muses' seat,
(Around her tomb, let weeping angels wait!)
Hail thou the brightest of thy sex, and best,

Most gracious neighbour,* and most welcome guest.

* The family seat was then at Wimple.

plenipotentiary so far concerned in the damned peace at Utrecht; the man, that makes up half the volume of terse prose, that makes up the report of the committee, speaking verses! Sic est, homo sum; and am not ashamed to send those very verses to one, who can make much better. And now let me ask you, How you do? and what you do? How your Irish country air agrees with you, and when you intend to take any English country air? In the spring I will meet you where you will, and go with you where you will; but I believe the best rendezvous will be Duke Street, and the fairest field for action Wimple;* the lords of both those seats agreeing, that no man shall be more welcome to either than yourself.

Not Harley's self, to Cam and Isis dear,
In virtues and in arts great Oxford's heir;
Not he such present honour shall receive,
As to his consort we aspire to give.

Writings of men our thoughts to-day neglects,
To pay due homage to the softer sex:

Plato and Tully we forbear to read,

And their great followers whom this house has bred,
To study lessons from thy morals given,

And shining characters impress'd by Heaven,
Science, in books, no longer we pursue,
Minerva's self, in Harriet's face we view;
For when with beauty, we can virtue join,
We paint the semblance of a form divine.

Their pious incense let our neighbours bring,
To the kind memory of some bounteous king;
With grateful hand, due altars let them raise,
To some good knight's, † or holy prelate's praise,
We tune our voices to another theme,
Your eyes we bless, your praises we proclaim;
Saint John's was founded in a woman's name.
Enjoin'd by statute, to the fair we how;
In spite of time, we keep our ancient vow;

What Margaret Tudor was, is Harriet Harley now.

Sir Thomas White, founder of St John's College, Oxon.

‡ Archbishop Laud also was a generous benefactor.

The seat of Lord Harley.-H.

It is many months since the complaints of my subscribers are redressed, and that they have ceased to call the bookseller a blockhead, by transferring that title to the author. We have not heard from Mr Hyde; but expect that at his leisure he will signify to Tonson what may relate to that whole matter, as to the second subscriptions. In the mean time, I hope the books have been delivered without any mistake: and shall only repeat to you, that I am sensible of the trouble my poetry has given you, and return you my thanks in plain prose. Earl of Oxford, pro more suo, went late into the country, and continues there still. Our friends are all well; so am I, nisi cum pituita molesta est; which is at this present writing, and will continue so all the winter. So, with weak lungs, and a very good heart, I remain always, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

M. PRIOR.

Service to Matthew Pennyfeather and all friends.
Adieu.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

December 19, 1719.

MY LORD, I FIRST Congratulate with you upon growing rich: for I hope our friend's information is true, Omne solum diti patria. Euripides makes the queen Jocasta ask her exiled son, how he got his victuals? But who ever expected to see you a trader or dealer in stocks? I thought to have seen you where you

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are, or perhaps nearer: but diis aliter visum. It may be with one's country as with a lady: if she be cruel and ill-natured, and will not receive us, we ought to consider that we are better without her. But, in this case, we may add, she has neither virtue, honour, nor justice. I have gotten a metzotinto (for want of a better) of Aristippus, in my drawingroom: the motto at the top is, Omnis Aristippum, &c. and at the bottom, Tantâ fœdus cum gente ferire, commissum juveni. But, since what I heard of Mississippi, I am grown fonder of the former motto. You have heard that Plato followed merchandize three years, to show he knew how to grow rich, as well as to be a philosopher: and I guess, Plato was then about forty, the period which the Italians prescribe for being wise, in order to be rich at fifty. Senes ut in otia tuta recedant. I have known something of courts and ministers longer than you, who knew them so many thousand times better; but I do not remember to have ever heard of, or seen, one great genius, who had long success in the ministry and recollecting a great many, in my memory and acquaintance, those who had the smoothest time, were, at best, men of middling degree in understanding. But, if I were to frame a romance of a great minister's life, he should begin it as Aristippus has done; then be sent into exile, and employ his leisure in writing the memoirs of his own administration; then be recalled, invited to resume his share of power, act as far as was decent; at last retire to the country, and be a pattern of hospitality, politeness, wisdom, and virtue. Have you not observed, that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest stations, in the court, the church, and the law? It must be so: for Pro

vidence, which designed the world should be governed by many heads, made it a business within the reach of common understandings; while one great genius is hardly found among ten millions. Did you never observe one of your clerks cutting his paper with a blunt ivory knife? did you ever know the knife to fail going the true way? whereas, if he had used a razor, or a penknife, he had odds against him of spoiling a whole sheet. I have twenty times compared the motion of that ivory implement, to those talents that thrive best at court. Think upon Lord Bacon, Williams, Strafford, Laud, Clarendon, Shaftesbury, the last Duke of Buckingham; and of my own acquaintance, the Earl of Oxford and yourself, all great geniuses in their several ways; and, if they had not been so great, would have been less unfortunate. I remember but one exception, and that was Lord Somers, whose timorous nature, joined with the trade of a common lawyer, and the consciousness of a mean extraction, had taught him the regularity of an alderman, or a gentleman usher. But of late years I have been refining upon this thought: for I plainly see, that fellows of low intellectuals, when they are gotten at the head of affairs, can sally into the highest exorbitancies, with much more safety, than a man of great talents can make the least step out of the way. Perhaps it is for the same reason, that men are more afraid of attacking a vicious than a mettlesome horse: but I rather think it owing to that incessant envy, wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own. And I conceive, if it were left to the choice of an ass, he would rather be kicked by one of his own species, than a better. If you will recollect that I am toward six years older than when I saw you last, and twenty years duller, you