You have the good wishes of those I converse with; they know they gratify me, when they remember you; but I really think they do it purely for your own fake. I am fatisfied with the love and friendship of good men, and envy not the demerits of thofe who are moft confpicuously distinguished. Therefore, as I fet a juft value upon your friendship, you cannot please me more than letting me now and then know that you remember me (the only fatisfaction of distant friends!)

you

your

P. S. Mr. Gay's is a good letter, mine will be a dull one; and very yet what will think the worst of it, is what should be its excufe, that I write in a head-ach that has lafted three days. I am never ill but I think of your ailments, and repine that they mutually hinder our being together; though in one point I am apt to differ from you, for you fhun friends when you are in those circumftances, and I defire them; your way is the more generous, mine the more tender. Lady took your letter very kindly, for I had prepared her to expect no anfwer under a twelve-month; but kindness perhaps is a word not applicable to courtiers. However fhe is an extraordinary woman there, who will do you common justice. For God's fake why all this fcruple about Lord B's keeping your horses, who has a park ; or about my keeping you on a pint of wine a day? We are infinitely richer than you imagine; John Gay

fhall

fhall help me to entertain you, though you come like King Lear with fifty knights.-Though fuch profpects as I wish, cannot now be formed for fixing you with us, time may provide better before you part again: the old Lord may die, the benefice may drop; or, at worst, you may carry me into Ireland. You will fee a work of Lord B's and one of mine ; which, with a just neglect of the present age, confult only pofterity; and, with a noble fcorn of politics, afpire to philofophy. I am glad you refolve to meddle no more with the low concerns and interests of Parties, even of Countries (for Countries are larger Parties) Quid verum atque decens, curare, et rogare, noftrum fit. I am much pleased with your design upon Rochefoucault's maxim, pray finifh it'. I am happy whenever you join our names together: fo would Dr. Arbuthnot be, but at this time he can be pleased with nothing for his darling fon is dying in all probability, by the melancholy account I received this morning.

The paper you ask me about is of little value. It might have been a seasonable fatire upon the scandalous language and paffion with which men of condition have stoop'd to treat one another; furely they facrifice too much to the people, when they facrifice their own characters, families, etc. to the diverfion of that rabble

of

The poem on his own death, formed upon a maxim of Rochefoucault. It is one of the best of his performances, but very characteristic.

W.

of readers. I agree with you in my contempt of most popularity, fame, etc. even as a writer I am cool in it, and whenever you fee what I am now writing *, you'll be convinced I would please but a few, and (if I could) make mankind less Admirers, and greater Reafoners. I ftudy much more to render my own portion of Being eafy, and to keep this peevish frame of the human body in good humour. Infirmities have not quite unmann'd me, and it will delight you to hear they are not increased, though not diminish'd. I thank God, I do not very much want people to attend me, though my Mother now cannot. When I am fick, I lie down; when I am better, I rife up: I am used to the head-ach, etc. If greater pains arrive (fuch as my late rheumatifm) the servants bathe and plaster me, or the furgeon fcarifies me, and I bear it, because I muft. This is the evil of Nature, not of Fortune. I am juft now as well as when you was here: I pray God you were no worse. I fincerely wish my life were past near you, and, fuch as it is, I would not repine at it.All you mention remember here. you, and wish you

* This was said whilst he was employed on the Essay on Man, not yet published, 1731.

LETTER LVIII.

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 Duchefs, which you promifed, and without which I wonder how it could limp hither. I am not in a condition to make a true step even on Aimsbury Downs, and I declare that a corporeal false step is worse than a political one; nay worse than a thoufand political ones, for which I appeal to Courts and Minifters, who hobble on and profper, without the fenfe of feeling. To talk of riding and walking is infulting me, for I can as foon fly as do either. It is your pride or laziness, more than chair-hire, that makes the town expenfive. No honour is loft by walking in the dark; and in the day, you may beckon a black-guard-boy under a gate, near your vifiting-place, (experto crede) fave 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 digeft neither for want of exercise; and, to increase my misery, the knaves are fure to find me at home, and make huge void spaces in my cellars. I congratulate with you, for lofing your Great acquaintance; in fuch a cafe, philofophy

teaches

pen

teaches that we must submit, and be content with good ones. I like Lord Cornbury's refusing his fion, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed; and entirely devoted to new principles; fo it appeared to me the two last times I was there.

I find by the whole caft 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 wifh you had fome little place that you could call your own, but I profefs I do not know you well enough to contrive any one fyftem of life that would please you. You pretend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchefs, yet, from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent defire of perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted lazinefs, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and fix horfes is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with fuch company as is best fuited to your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting? while I, who am fo much later in life, can, or at least could, ride 500 miles on a trotting horfe. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do: as well to keep up the vogue you have in the world, as to make you eafy in your fortune: you are merciful to every thing but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity.

Be