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thought of you in my life,) but to a custom which breaks off commerce between abundance of people, after a long absence. At first one omits writing for a little while,-and then one stays a while longer to consider of excuses, -and at last it grows desperate, and one does not write at all. At this rate I have served others, and have been served myself.

I wish I had a Lexicon by me, to find whether your Greek word be spelt and accented right, and am very sorry you have made an acutum in ultiina, as if you laid the greatest stress upon the worst part of the word. However,

protest against your meaning, or any interpretation you shall ever make of that nature out of my letters; if I thought you deserved any bitter words, I should either deliver them plainly, or hold my tongue altogether; for, I esteem the custom of conveying one's resentient by hints, or inuendos, to be a sign of malice or fear, or too little sin cerity: but I have told you, coram et absens, that you are in your nature more sensible than you need be; and I find it is with reputation as with all other possessions, that those who have the greatest portion are most covetous of it. It is hard you cannot be satisfied with the esteem of the best among your neighbours, but lose your time in regarding what may be thought of you by one of my privacy and distance. I wish you could as easily make my esteem and friendship for you to be of any value, as you may be sure to command them.

I should be sorry if you have been at any inconvenience in hastening my accompts; and I dare refer you to my letters, that they will lay the fault upon yourself; for, I think 1 desired, more than once, that you would not make more dispatch than stood trith your ease, because I was in no haste at all.

I desired of you, two or three times, that when you had sent me a catalogue of those few books, you would not send them to Dublin till you had heard again from me. The reason was, that I did believe there were one or two of them that might have been useful to you, and one or two more that were not worth their carriage. Of the latter sort were an old musty Horace and Joley's book. Of the former were Reynold's Work; Collection of Serinons, in quarto ; Stillingfleet's Grounds, &c. and the folio paper book, very good for sermons, or a receipt-book for your wife, to keep accounts of mutton, raisins, &c. The Sceptis Scientifica is not mine, but old Mr. Dobbes's; and I wish it were restored. He has Temple's Miscellanea instead of it, which

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is a good book, worth your reading. If Sceptis Scientifica comes to me, I will burn it for a fustían piece of abominable curious virtuoso stuff. The books missing are few and inconsiderable, not worth troubling any body about. I hope this will come to your hands before you have sent your cargo, that you may keep those books you mention; and desire you will write my name and er dono before them in large letters. I desire my humble service to Mrs. Windar, and that you will let her know I shall pay a visit at Carmoney some day or other, how little soever any of

you may think of it; but I will, as you desire, excuse you the delivery of my compliments to poor H. Clements, and hope you will have much better fortune than poor Mr. Davis, who has left a family that is like to find a cruel want of him. Pray let me hear that you grow very rich, and begin to make purchases. I never heard that H. Clements was dead; I was at his mayoral feast. Has he been mayor since, or did he die then, and every body forgot to send me word of it?

These sermons you have thought fit to transcribe will utterly disgrace you, unless you have so much credit that whatever comes from

you
will

pass. They were what I was firmly resolved to burn, and especially some of them; the idlest, trifling stuff that ever was writ, calculated for a church without company, or a roof like our ....... at Oxford. They will be a perfect lampoon upon me, whenever you look on them and remember they are mine.

I remember those letters to Eliza; they were writ in my youth. You might have sealed them up, and nobody of my friends would bave opened them. Pray burn them.

There were parcels of other papers that I would not have lost, and I hope you have packed them up, so that they may come to me. Some of them were abstracts and collections from reading

You mention a dangerous rival for an absent lover. But I must take my fortune. If the report proceeds, pray inform me; and, when you have leisure and humour, give me the pleasure of a letter from you: and, though you are a man full of fastenings to the world, yet endeavour to continue a friendship in absence ; for, who knows but Fate may jumble us together again; and I believe, had I been

of your neighbourhood, I should not have been so unsatisfied with the region I was planted in.

I am, and will be ever, entirely yours, &c.

J. Swift.

Pray let me know something of my debt being paid to Tailer, the inn-keeper of ...

I have forgot the name of the town-between Dromore and Newry.

LETTER II.

To the Rev. Mr. Windar, at Belfast.
SIR,

Dublin, Feb. 19, 1731-2. I had the favour of yours of the 6th instant. I have been above a fortnight confined by an accidental strain, and can neither ride nor walk, nor easily write, else you should have heard from me sooner. I am heartily sorry for your disorder, and am the more sensible by those I have myself, though not of the same kind, but a constant disposition to giddiness, which I fear my present confinement, with the want of exercise, will increase. I am afraid you could not light upon a more unqualified man to serve you or my nearest friends, in any manner, with people in power: for, I bave the misfortane to be not only under the particular displeasure both of the king and queen, as every body knows, but likewise every person, both in England and Ireland, who is well with the court, and can do me good or hurt. And although this and the two last lieutenants were of my old acquaintance,yet I never could prevail with any of them to give a living to a sober grave clergyman, who married my near relation, and has been long in the church, so that he still is my corate ; and I reckon this present governor will do like the rest. I believe there is not any person you see from this town who does not know that my situation is as I describe. If you, or your son, were in favour with any bishop or parson, perhaps it might be contrived to have them put in mind, or solicited; but I am no way proper to be the first mover, because there is not one spiritual or temporal lord in Ireland whom I visit, or by whom I am visited, but am as mere a monk as any in Spain; and there is not a clergyman on the top of a moun lain who so little con. verses with mankind, or is so little regarded by them, on any other account except shewing malice. All this I bear as well as I can; eat my niorsel alone, like a king; and constantly at home, when, I am not riding, or walking, which I do often, and always alone.

I give you this picture of myself, out of old friendship; whence you may judge what share of spirits and mirth are now luit me; yet I cannot read at night, and am therefore forced to scribble something, whereof nine things in ten are burned next morning. Forgive this tediousness in the pen, which I acquire by the want of spending it in talk. And believe me to be, with true esteem and friendship, your most obedient, humble servant, &c. 1794, July.

[No signature.]

LXXXVI. The Rev. Dean Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, to Mr. Nicholas Hunt, of that City, while la-

bouring under a Cancer, of which he died A. D. 1687.
SIR,

sorry to understand by Mr. Janeway's letter that your distemper grows upon you, and that you seem to decline so fast. I am very sensible how much easier it is to give advice against trouble in the case of another, than to take it

I AM

in our own.

It hath pleased God to exercise me with a very sore trial in the loss of my dear and only child; in which I do perfectly submit to his good pleasure; firmly believing that he does, always, that which is best : and yet, though Reason be satisfied, our passions are not so soon appeased; and, when Nature hath received a wound, time must be allowed for the healing of it.

Since that, God hath thought fit to give me a nearer summons, and a closer warning of my own mortality, in the danger of an apoplexy; which yet, I thank God for it, hath occasioned no very melancholy reflections. But this, perhaps, is more owing to natural temper than philosophy and wise considerations.

Your case is very different, who are of a temper naturally melancholy, and under a distemper apt to increase it: for both which great allowances ought to be made. And yet, methinks, both Reason and Religion do offer us consider ations of that solidity and strength as may very well support our spirits under all frailties and infirmities of the flesh, Such as these : that God is perfect love and goodness; that we are not only his creatures, but also his children, and are as dear to him as to ourselves; that he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men; and that all evils of affliction are intended for the cure and prevention of the greater evils of sin and punishinent : and, therefore, we ought not only to submit to them with patience, as being

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deserved by us, but to receive them with thankfulness, as being designed by him to do us that good, and to bring us to that sense of him, and of ourselves, which perhaps nothing else would have done ; that the sufferings of this pre

: sent life are but slight and short compared with those extreme and endless miseries which we have deserved, and with those exceeding weights of glory which we hope for in the other world. If we be careful to make the best preparation for death and eternity, whatever brings us nearer to our end brings us nearer to our happiness; and, how rugged soever the way, the comfort is, that it leads to our Father's house, where we shall want nothing that we can wish for.

Now we labour under a dangerous distemper that threatens our life, what would we not be contented to bear in order to a perfect recovery, could we be but assured of it! And should we not be willing to endure much more in order to happiness and that eternal life, which God, who cannot he, hath promised?

Nature, I know, is fond of life, and apt to be still lingering after a long continuance here; and yet, long life, with the usual burthens and infirmities of it, is seldom desirable. It is but the same thing over again, or worse; so many more nights and days, sunmers and winters; a repetition of the same pleasures, but with less pleasure and relish every day is turned oif; the same and greater pain and trouble, but with less strength and patience to bear them.

These and the like considerations I use to entertain myself withal; not only with content but with confort, though with great inequality of temper at sereral times, and with much mixture of human frailties, which will always stick to us whilst we are in this world. However, by this kind of thoughts death seems more familiar to us; and we shall be able, by degrees, to bring our minds close up to it without starting at it.

The greatest tenderness I find in myself is in regard to some relations, especially the dearest and constant companion of my life : which, I must confess, doth very sensibly touch me But when I consider-and so, I hope, will they alse;---that separation will be but a very little while; and, though I shall leave them in a bad world, yet under the care of a good God, who can be more and better to them than all other relations, and will be certainly so to all them that love him, and hope in his mercy, I shall not need to advise you what to do, and what use to make of this time of your visitation.

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