2

My neighbour's writings have been metaphysical, and will next be historical. It is certainly from him only that a valuable history of Europe in these latter times can be expected. Come, and quicken him; for age, indolence, and contempt of the world, grow upon men apace, and may often make the wisest indifferent whether posterity be any wiser than we. To a man in years, health and quiet become such rarities, and consequently so valuable, that he is apt to think of nothing more than of enjoying them whenever he can, for the remainder of life; and this, I doubt not, has caused so many great men to die without leaving a scrap to posterity.

I am sincerely troubled for the bad account you give me of your own health. I wish every day to hear a better, as much as I do to enjoy my own, I faithfully assure you.

LETTER CXXXVII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

Dublin, July 8, 1733.

I MUST condole with you for the loss of Mrs. Pope, of whose death the papers have been full. But I would rather rejoice with you, because, if any circumstances can make the death of a dear parent and friend a subject for joy, you have them all. She died in an extreme old age, without pain, under the care of the most dutiful son that I have ever known or heard of, which is a felicity not happening to one in a million. The worst effect of her death falls upon me, and so much the worse, because I expected aliquis damno usus in illo, that it would be followed by making me and this kingdom happy with your presence. But I am

2 Bolingbroke's philosophical works.-Bowles.

told, to my great misfortune, that a very convenient offer happening, you waved the invitation pressed on you, alleging the fear you had of being killed here with eating and drinking. By which I find that you have given some credit to a notion, of our great plenty and hospitality. It is true, our meat and wine is cheaper here, as it is always in the poorest countries, because there is no money to pay for them: I believe there are not in this whole city three gentlemen out of employment, who are able to give entertainments once a month. Those who are in employments of church or state, are three parts in four from England, and amount to little more than a dozen: those indeed may once or twice invite their friends, or any person of distinction that makes a voyage hither. All my acquaintance tell me, they know not above three families where they can occasionally dine in a whole year; Dr. Delany is the only gentleman I know, who keeps one certain day in the week to entertain seven or eight friends at dinner, and to pass the evening, where there is nothing of excess, either in eating or drinking. Our old friend Southern (who hath just left us) was invited to dinner once or twice by a judge, a bishop, or a commissioner of the revenues, but most frequented a few particular friends, and chiefly the doctor, who is easy in his fortune, and very hospitable. The conveniences of taking the air, winter or summer, do far exceed those in London. For the two large strands just at the two ends of the town are as firm and dry in winter as in summer. There are at least six or eight gentlemen of sense, learning, good humour, and taste, able and desirous to please you; and orderly females, some of the better sort, to take care of you. These were the motives that I have frequently made use of to entice

3

3 The poet.

you hither. And there would be no failure among the best people here, of any honours that could be done you. As to myself, I declare, my health is so uncertain, that I dare not venture amongst you at present. I hate the thoughts of London, where I am not rich enough to live otherwise than by shifting, which is now too late. Neither can I have conveniences in the country for three horses and two servants, and many others, which I have here at hand. I am one of the governors of all the hackney coaches, carts, and carriages, round this town, who dare not insult me, like your rascally waggoners or coachmen, but give me the way; nor is there one lord or squire for a hundred of yours, to turn me out of the road, or run over me with their coaches and six. Thus, I make some advantage of the public poverty, and give you the reasons for what I once writ, why I choose to be a freeman among slaves, rather than a slave among freemen. Then, I walk the streets in peace, without being jostled, nor even without a thousand blessings from my friends the vulgar. I am lord mayor of one hundred and twenty houses, I am absolute lord of the greatest cathedral in the kingdom, am at peace with the neighbouring princes, the lord mayor of the city, and the archbishop of Dublin, only the latter, like the K. of France, sometimes attempts encroachments on my dominions, as old Lewis did upon Lorrain. In the midst of this raillery, I can tell you with seriousness, that these advantages contribute to my ease, and therefore I value them. And in one part of your letter relating to my Lord B and yourself, you agree with me entirely, about the indifference, the love of quiet, the care of health, &c. that grow upon men in years. And if you discover those inclinations in my

4

4 Bolingbroke.

Lord and yourself, what can you expect from me, whose health is so precarious? and yet at your or his time of life, I could have leaped over the moon3.

LETTER CXXXVIII.

MR POPE TO DR. SWIFT.

Sept. 1, 1733.

I HAVE every day wished to write to you, to say a thousand things; and yet, I think, I should not have writ to you now, if I was not sick of writing any thing, sick of myself, and (what is worse) sick of my friends too. The world is become too busy for me; every body is so concerned for the public, that all private enjoyments are lost, or disrelished. I write more to show you I am tired of this life, than to tell you any thing relating to it. I live as I did, I think as I did, I love you as I did; but all these are to no purpose; the world will not live, think, or love, as I do. I am troubled for, and vexed at, all my friends by turns. Here are some whom you love, and who love you; yet they receive no proofs of that affection from you, and they give none of it to you. There is a great gulf between. In earnest, I would go a thousand miles by land to see you, but the sea I dread. My ailments are such, that I really believe a sea-sickness (considering the oppression of colical pains, and the great weakness of my breast) would kill me: and if I did not die of that, I must of the excessive eating and drinking of your hospitable town, and the excessive flattery of your

5 Swift had been remarkably active. The last place of his residence in England was Letcombe, in Berkshire, where there is a hill, which the village tradition says he was in the habit of running up every morning before breakfast. In his declining years, it is known that, for exercise, which he could not take abroad, he pursued the plan, strange as it may appear, of running violently up and down the stairs.-Bowles.

Mr. Bowles is here mistaken. Swift was twice in England after his residence at Letcombe !

VOL. VIII.

Y

most poetical country. I hate to be crammed either way. Let your hungry poets, and your rhyming poets, digest it; I cannot. I like much better to be abused and half starved, than to be so over praised and over fed. Drown Ireland for having caught you, and for having kept you: I only reserve a little charity for her, for knowing your value, and esteeming you: you are the only patriot I know, who is not hated for serving his country. The man who drew your character and printed it here, was not much in the wrong in many things he said of you: yet he was a very impertinent fellow, for saying them in words quite different from those you had yourself employed before on the same subject: for surely to alter your words is to prejudice them; and I have been told, that a man himself can hardly say the same thing twice over with equal happiness; nature is so much a better thing than artifice.

I have written nothing this year: it is not affectation to tell you, my mother's loss has turned my frame of thinking. The habit of a whole life is a stronger thing than all the reason in the world. I know I ought to be easy, and to be free; but I am dejected, I am confined my whole amusement is in reviewing my past life, not in laying plans for my future. I wish you cared as little for popular applause as I; as little for any nation in contradistinction to others, as I; and then I fancy you that are not afraid of the sea, you that are a stronger man at sixty than ever I was at twenty, would come and see several people who are (at last) like the primitive Christians, of one soul and of one mind. The day is come, which I have often wished,

This is a remarkable paragraph. At this time, therefore, 1733, he and Bolingbroke were of the same sentiment in religion as well as politics.— Warton.

This attempt of Dr. Warton to show that Pope's religious opinions were the same as Lord Bolingbroke's is futile; unless it could be shown that Swift was also of the same opinion, which no one has ever supposed. The sentiment to which Pope here alludes is, as clearly appears by the