part, as I understand, of his work, and desired me to peruse, consider, and observe upon them against Monday next, when he will come down again. By what I have read of the two first, I find myself unable to serve him. The principles he reasons upon are begged in a disputation of this sort, and the manner of reasoning is by no means close and conclusive. The sole advice I could give him in conscience would be that which he would take ill and not follow. I will get rid of this task as well as I can, for I esteem the man, and should be sorry to disoblige him where I cannot serve him.

As to retirement, and exercise, your notions are true; the first should not be indulged so much as to render us savage, nor the last neglected so as to impair health. But I know men, who, for fear of being savage, live with all who will live with them; and who, to preserve their health, saunter away half their time. Adieu! Pope calls for the paper.

P. S. I hope what goes before will be a strong motive to your coming. God knows if ever I shall see Ireland; I shall never desire it, if you can be got hither, or kept here. Yet I think I shall be, too soon, a free man. Your recommendations I constantly give to those you mention; though some of them I see but seldom, and am every day more retired. I am less fond of the world, and less curious about it: yet no way out of humour, disappointed, or angry: though in

The best of his

same may be said of this author's Life of King David. works seems to be his Reflections on Polygamy. Dr. Delany was an amiable, a benevolent, and virtuous man; a character far superior to that of the ablest controversial writer. His defence of Revelation is of a very different cast from such solid and masterly works as the Bishop of Landaft's Apology for the Bible, and Archdeacon Paley's Evidences of Christianity.—

Warton.

my way I receive as many injuries as my betters, but I do not feel them, therefore I ought not to vex other people, nor even to return injuries. I pass almost all my time at Dawley, and at home. My lord (of which I partly take the merit to myself) is as much estranged from politics as I am. Let philosophy be ever so vain, it is less vain now than politics, and not quite so vain at present as divinity: I know nothing that moves strongly but satire, and those who are ashamed of nothing else, are so of being ridiculous. I fancy, if we three were together but for three years, some good might be done even upon this age.

I know you will desire some account of my health: it is as usual, but my spirits rather worse. I write little or nothing. You know I never had either a taste or talent for politics, and the world minds nothing else. I have personal obligations, which I will ever preserve, to men of different sides, and I wish nothing so much as public quiet, except it be my own quiet. I think it a merit, if I can take off any man from grating or satirical subjects, merely on the score of party and it is the greatest vanity of my life that I have contributed to turn my Lord Bolingbroke to subjects moral, useful, and more worthy his pen. Dr.

's book is what I cannot commend so much as Dean Berkley's', though it has many things ingenious in it, and is not deficient in the writing part: but the whole book, though he meant it ad populum, is, I think, purely ad clerum. Adieu.

2 A very lively and ingenious book, called, The Minute Philosopher.— Warburton.

A book that deserves a much higher encomium than being lively and ingenious; as containing, perhaps, a stronger defence of Revelation than the Divine Legation of Moses.-Warton.

LETTER CVIII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. GAY AND THE DUCHESS OF

QUEENSBERRY.

YOUR situation is an odd one.

Dublin, April 13, 1731. The Duchess is your

treasurer, and Mr. Pope tells me you are the Duke's. And I had gone a good way in some verses on that occasion, prescribing lessons to direct your conduct, in a negative way, not to do so and so, &c. like other treasurers; how to deal with servants, tenants, or neighbouring squires, which I take to be courtiers, parliaments, and princes in alliance, and so the parallel goes on, but grows too long to please me: I prove that poets are the fittest persons to be treasurers and managers to great persons, from their virtue and contempt of money, &c. Pray, why did you not get a new heel to your shoe? unless you would make your court at St. James's by affecting to imitate the prince of Lilliput. But the rest of your letter being wholly taken up in a very bad character of the Duchess, I shall say no more to you, but apply myself to her Grace.

Madam, since Mr. Gay affirms that youlove to have your own way, and since I have the same perfection, I will settle that matter immediately, to prevent those ill consequences he apprehends. Your Grace shall have your own way, in all places and the domains about it. expect to have mine, so that reign in, bating only two or three hundred acres, and two or three houses in town and country. I will likewise, out of my special grace, certain knowledge, and

except your own house, There, and there only, I you have all the world to

mere motion, allow you to be in the right against all human kind, except myself, and to be never in the wrong but when you differ from me. You shall have a greater privilege in the third article of speaking your mind; which I shall graciously allow you now and then to do even to myself, and only rebuke you when it does not please me.

Madam, I am now got as far as your Grace's letter, which having not read this fortnight, (having been out of town, and not daring to trust myself with the carriage of it,) the presumptuous manner in which you begin had slipt out of my memory. But I forgive you to the seventeenth line, where you begin to banish me for ever, by demanding me to answer all the good character some partial friends have given me. Madam, I have lived sixteen years in Ireland, with only an intermission of two summers in England; and consequently am fifty years older than I was at the queen's death, and fifty thousand times duller, and fifty million times more peevish, perverse, and morose; so that under these disadvantages I can only pretend to excel all your other acquaintance about some twenty bars' length. Pray, Madam, have you a clear voice? and will you let me sit at your left hand, at least within three of you, for of two bad ears, my right is the best? My groom tells me that he likes your park, but your house is too little. Can the parson of the parish play at back-gammon, and hold his tongue? is any one of your women a good nurse, if I should fancy myself sick for four and twenty hours? how many days will you maintain me and my equipage? When these preliminaries are settled, I must be very poor, very sick, or dead, or to the last degree unfortunate, if I do not attend you at Amesbury. For, I profess, you are the first lady that ever I desired to see, since the first

of August, 1714, and I have forgot the date when that desire grew strong upon me, but I know I was not then in England, else I would have gone on foot for that happiness as far as to your house in Scotland. But I can soon recollect the time, by asking some ladies here the month, the day, and the hour when I began to endure their company; which, however, I think was a sign of my ill judgment, for I do not perceive they mend in any thing but envying or admiring your Grace. I dislike nothing in your letter but an affected apology for bad writing, bad spelling, and a bad pen, which you pretend Mr. Gay found fault with; wherein you affront Mr. Gay, you affront me, and you affront yourself. False spelling is only excusable in a chamber-maid, for I would not pardon it in any of your waiting-women. Pray God preserve your Grace and family, and give me leave to expect that you will be so just to remember me among those who have the greatest regard for virtue, goodness, prudence, courage, and generosity; after which you must conclude that I am, with the greatest respect and gratitude, Madam, your Grace's most obedient and most humble servant, &c.

TO MR. GAY.

I have just got yours of February 24, with a postscript by Mr. Pope. I am in great concern for him; I find Mr. Pope dictated to you the first part, and with great difficulty some days after added the rest. I see his weakness by his hand-writing. How much does his philosophy exceed mine? I could not bear to see him: I will write to him soon.

3 The day on which Queen Anne died, when all his hopes of more préferment were lost.-Warton.