the finding yours and my name constantly united in any filly scandal, I think you would go near to fing Io Triumphe! and celebrate my happiness in verse; and, I believe, if you won't, I shall. The infcription to the Dunciad is now printed and inferted in the Poem. Do you care I fhould fay any thing further how much that poem is yours? fince certainly without you it had never been. Would to God we were together for the rest of our lives! The whole weight of Scribblers would just serve to find us amusement, and not more. I hope you are too well employed to mind them; every ftick you plant, and every ftone you lay is to fome purpose; but the business of such lives as theirs is but to die daily, to labour, and raise nothing. I only wish we could comfort each other under our bodily infirmities, and let those who have fo great a mind to have more Wit than we, win it and wear it. Give us but eafe, health, peace, and fair weather! I think it is the best wish in the world, and you know whose it was. If I lived in Ireland, I fear the wet climate would endanger more than my life; my humour, and health; I am fo Atmospherical a

creature.

I must not omit acquainting you, that what you heard of the words spoken of you in the Drawing-room, was not true. The fayings of Princes are generally as ill related as the fayings of Wits. To fuch reports little of our regard fhould be given, and less of our conduct influenced by them.

LETTER XXXV.

FROM DR. SWIFT.

Dublin, Feb. 13, 1728.

LIVED very easily in the country: Sir A. is a man of sense, and a scholar, has a good voice, and my Lady a better; she is perfectly well bred, and defirous to improve her understanding, which is very good, but cultivated too much like a fine Lady. She was my pupil there, and feverely chid when fhe read wrong; with that, and walking, and making twenty little amusing improvements, and writing family verses of mirth by way of libels on my Lady, my time past very well and in very great order; infinitely better than here, where I fee no creature but my fervants and my old Presbyterian house-keeper, denying myself to every body, till I shall recover my ears.

The account of another Lord Lieutenant was only in a common news-paper, when I was in the country; and if it should have happened to be true, I would have defired to have had accefs to him as the fituation I am in requires. But this renews the grief for the death of our friend Mr. Congreve *, whom I loved from

my

* He was certainly one of the moft polite, pleafing, and wellbred men of all his contemporaries. And it might have been faid of him, as of Cowley, "You would not, from his conversation, have known him to be a Wit and a Poet, it was fo unaffuming

my youth, and who furely, befides his other talents, was a very agreeable companion. He had the mif fortune to fquander away a very good conftitution in his younger days; and I think a man of sense and merit like him, is bound in confcience to preserve his health for the fake of his friends, as well as of himfelf. Upon his own account I could not much defire the continuance of his life under fo much pain, and fo many infirmities. Years have not yet hardened me; and I have an addition of weight upon my

fpirits

and courteous." Swift had always a great regard and affection for him; and introduced him, though a strenuous Whig, to the favour of Lord Oxford. It is remarkable, that on its first publication, Congreve thought the Tale of a Tub grofs and infipid. Swift, in a copy of Verfes to Dr. Delany, fpeaks thus of Congreve's fortune and fituation:

Thus, Congreve spent in writing Plays,
And one poor Office, half his days:
While Montague, who claim'd his station
To be Mecenas of the Nation,
For Poets open tables kept,

But ne'er confider'd where they flept:
Himself, as rich as fifty Jews,
Was eafy tho' they wanted fhoes;
And crazy Congreve scarce cou'd spare
A Shilling to discharge his Chair;
Till Prudence taught him to appeal
From Pæan's Fire to Party Zeal;
Not owing to his happy vein

Took proper principles to thrive;

And fo might every Dunce alive,

This picture is unfair and over-charged; for the honour of Government, Congreve had feveral good places conferred on him, and enjoyed an affluent income.

fpirits fince we lost him; though I faw him fo feldom, and poffibly if he had lived on, should never have seen him more. I do not only wifh as you afk me, that I was unacquainted with any deferving perfon, but almost that I never had a friend. Here is an ingenious good-humoured Physician, a fine gentleman, an excellent scholar, easy in his fortunes, kind to every body, hath abundance of friends, entertains them often and liberally, they pass the evening with him at cards, with plenty of good meat and wine, eight or a dozen together; he loves them all, and they him. He has twenty of these at command; if one of them dies, it is no more than, Poor Tom! he gets another, or takes up with the reft, and is no more moved than at the lofs of his cat: he offends nobody, is easy with every body—Is not this the true happy man? I was defcribing him to my Lady A-, who knows him too, but she hates him mortally by my character, and will not drink his health: I would give half my fortune for the fame temper, and yet I cannot say I love it, for I do not love my Lord who is much of the Doctor's nature. I hear Mr. Gay's fecond Opera, which you mention, is forbid; and then he will be once more fit to be advised, and reject your advice. Adieu.

LETTER XXXVI.

DR. SWIFT TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

γου

Dublin, March 21, 1729.

ou tell me you have not quitted the design of collecting, writing, etc. This is the answer of every finner who defers his repentance. I wish Mr. Pope was as great an urger as I, who long for nothing more than to see truth under your hands, laying all detraction in the duft-I find myself difpofed every year, or rather every month, to be more angry and revengeful; and my rage is fo ignoble, that it defcends even to resent the folly and baseness of the enflaved people among whom I live. I knew an old Lord in Leicestershire, who amufed himself with mending pitchforks and fpades for his Tenants gratis. Yet I have higher ideas left, if I were nearer to objects on which I might employ them; and contemning my private fortune, would gladly crofs the channel and ftand by, while my betters were driving the Boars out of the garden, if there be any probable expectation of fuch an endeavour. When I was of your age I often thought of death, but now after a dozen years more, it is never out of my mind, and terrifies me lefs. I conclude that Providence hath ordered our fears to decrease with our fpirits; and yet I love la bagatelle better than ever; for finding it troublesome

to