excellency to which the Noble Lord to whom it is written must necessarily be celebrated. I fancied it might escape censure, especially seeing how tenderly these follies are treated, and really less accused than apologized for.

Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed,
Health to himself, and to his infants bread

The labourer bears.

Is this such a crime, that to impute it to a man must be a grievous offence? It is an innocent folly, and much more beneficent than the want of it; for ill taste employs more hands, and diffuses expense more than a good one. Is it a moral defect? No, it is but a natural one, a want of taste. It is what the best good man living may be liable to. The worthiest peer may live exemplarily in an ill-favoured house, and the best reputed citizen be pleased with a vile garden. I thought (I say) the author had the common liberty to observe a defect, and to compliment a friend for a quality that distinguishes him: which I know not how any quality should do, if we were not to remark that it was wanting in others.

But, they say, the satire is personal. I thought it could not be so, because all its reflections are on things. His reflections are not on the man, but his house, garden, &c. Nay, he respects (as one may say) the persons of the Gladiator, the Nile, and the Triton: he is only sorry to see them (as he might be to see any of his friends) ridiculous by being in the wrong place, and in bad company. Some fancy, that to say a thing is personal, is the same as to say it is unjust, not considering, that nothing can be just that is not personal. I am afraid that "all such writings and discourses as touch no man, will mend no man." The good-natured, indeed, are apt to be alarmed at any thing like satire; and the guilty readily concur with the weak for a plain

reason, because the vicious look upon folly as their frontier:

Ucalegon.

Jam proximus ardet

No wonder those who know ridicule belongs to them, find an inward consolation in moving it from themselves as far as they can; and it is never so far, as when they can get it fixed on the best characters. No wonder those who are food for satirists should rail at them as creatures of prey; every beast born for our use would be ready to call a man so.

I know no remedy, unless people in our age would as little frequent the theatres, as they begin to do the churches; unless comedy were forsaken, satire silent, and every man left to do what seems good in his own eyes, as if there were no king, no priest, no poet, in Israel.

But I find myself obliged to touch a point, on which I must be more serious; it well deserves I should: I mean the malicious application of the character of Timon, which, I will boldly say, they would impute to the person the most different in the world from a manhater, to the person whose taste and encouragement of wit have often been shown in the rightest place. The author of that Epistle must certainly think so, if he has the same opinion of his own merit as authors generally have; for he has been distinguished by this very person.

Why, in God's name, must a portrait, apparently collected from twenty different men, be applied to one only? Has it his eye? no, it is very unlike. Has it his nose or mouth? no, they are totally differing. What then, I beseech you? Why, it has the mole on his chin. Very well; but must the picture therefore be his, and has no other man that blemish?

Could there be a more melancholy instance how

much the taste of the public is vitiated, and turns the most salutary and seasonable physic into poison, than if, amidst the blaze of a thousand bright qualities in a great man, they should only remark there is a shadow about him; as what eminence is without? I am confident the author was incapable of imputing any such to one, whose whole life (to use his own expression in print of him) is a continued series of good and generous

actions.

I know no man who would be more concerned, if he gave the least pain or offence to any innocent person; and none who would be less concerned, if the satire were challenged by any one at whom he would really aim it. If ever that happens, I dare engage he will own it, with all the freedom of one whose censures are just, and who sets his name to them.

LETTER CXVII.

MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT.

DEAR SIR,

London, Jan. 18, 1731-2.

It is now past nine o'clock. I deferred sitting down to write to you, in expectation to have seen Mr. Pope, who left me two or three hours ago, to try to find Lord Burlington, within whose walls I have not been admitted this year and a half; but for what reason I know not. Mr. Pope is just this minute come in, but had not the good luck to find him: so that I cannot give you any satisfaction in the affair you writ last about. He designs to see him to-morrow; and if any thing can be done, he says you shall hear from him.

By the beginning of my letter you see how I decline in favour; but I look upon it as my particular distinction, that as soon as the court gains a man I lose

him. It is a mortification I have been used to, so I bear it as a philosopher should.

The letter which you writ to me and the duke, I received; and Mr. Pope showed me that directed to him, which gave me more pleasure than all the letters you have writ since I saw you, as it gives me hopes of seeing you soon.

Were I to acquaint the duke and duchess of my writing, I know that they would have something to say to you, and perhaps would prevent my sending the letter this post, so I chose to say nothing about it. You are in great favour and esteem with all that love me, which is one great reason that I love and esteem them.

Whenever you will order me to turn your fortune into ready money, I will obey you; but I choose to leave it where it is till you want it, as it carries some interest; though it might be now sold to some advantage, and is liable to rises and falls with the other stocks. It may be higher as well as lower; so I will not dispose of it till I hear from you. I am impatient to see you, so are all your friends. You have taken your resolution, and I shall henceforth expect every week an agreeable surprise. The bellman rings for the letter, so I can say no more.

LETTER CXVIII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. GAY.

Dublin, May 4, 1732.

I AM now as lame as when you writ your letter, and almost as lame as your letter itself, for want of that limb, from my Lady Duchess, which you promised, and without which I wonder how it could limp hither. I am not in a condition to make a true step even on

Amesbury Downs, and I declare that a corporeal false step is worse than a political one; nay, worse than a thousand political ones, for which I appeal to courts and ministers, who hobble on and prosper, without the sense of feeling. To talk of riding and walking is insulting me, for I can as soon fly as do either. It is your pride or laziness, more than chair-hire, that makes the town expensive. No honour is lost by walking in the dark; and in the day, you may beckon a blackguard boy under a gate, near your visiting place, (experto crede) save eleven pence, and get a half a crown's worth of health. The worst of my present misfortune is, that I eat and drink, and can digest neither for want of exercise; and, to increase my misery, the knaves are sure to find me at home, and make huge void spaces in my cellars. I congratulate with you, for losing your great acquaintance; in such a case, philosophy teaches that we must submit, and be content with good ones. I like Lord Cornbury's refusing his pension, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed, and entirely devoted to new principles; so it appeared to me the two last times I was there.

I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and volatile as ever, just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who hath always loved a domestic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive any one system of life that would please you. You pretend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchess, yet, from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent desire of perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you