he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banish himself. This leads me to give you fome account of the manner of my Life and Conversation, which has been infinitely more various and diffipated,

1

than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all Sexes, Parties, and Profeffions. A Glut of Study and Retirement in the first part of my life caft me into this; and this, I begin to fee, will throw me again into Study and Retirement.

The Civilities I have met with from oppofite Sets of people, have hindered me from being violent or four to any Party; but at the fame time the Obfervation and Experience I cannot but have collected, have made me lefs fond of, and lefs furprized at, any: I am therefore the more afflicted and the more angry at the Violence and Hardships I fee practifed by either. The merry vein you knew me in, is funk into a Turn of Reflection, that has made the world pretty indifferent to me; and yet I have acquired a Quietness of mind which by fits improves into a certain degree of Chearfulness, enough to make me juft fo good humoured as to wish that world well. My Friendships are increased by new ones, yet no part of the warmth I felt for the old is diminished. Aversions I have none but to Knaves, (for Fools I have learned to bear with,) and fuch I cannot be commonly civil to; for I think thofe men are next to Knaves who converse with them. The greatest man in power of

this fort fhall hardly make me bow to him, unless I had a perfonal obligation, and that I will take care not to have. The top pleasure of my life is one I learned from you both how to gain and how to use; the Freedom of Friendship with men much my Superiors. To have pleafed great men, according to Horace, is a praife; but not to have flattered them, and yet not have difpleased them, is a greater. I have carefully avoided all intercourse with Poets and Scribblers, unless where by great chance I have found a modest one. By these means I have had no quarrels with any perfonally; none have been Enemies, but who were alfo Strangers to me: and as there is no great need of Eclairciffement with fuch, whatever they writ or faid I never retaliated, not only never seeming to know, but often really never knowing, any thing of the matter. There are very few things that give me the Anxiety of a wish; the strongest I have would be to pafs my days with you, and a few fuch as you: but Fate has difperfed them all about the world; and I find to wish it is as vain, as to wish to see the Millennium and the Kingdom of the Juft upon earth.

If I have finned in my long filence, confider there is one to whom you yourself have been as great a finner. As foon as you see his hand, you will learn to do me justice, and feel in your heart how long a man may be filent to those he truly loves and respects.

I

LETTER VIII.

LORD BOLINGBROKE TO DR. SWIFT.

AM not fo lazy as Pope, and therefore you must not expect from me the fame indulgence to Lazinefs; in defending his own cause he pleads yours, and becomes your Advocate while he appeals to you as his Judge. You will do the fame on your part; and I, and the rest of your common Friends, shall have great justice to expect from two fuch righteous Tribunals: you refemble perfectly the two Alehouse-keepers in Holland, who were at the fame time Burgomafters of the Town, and taxed one another's Bills alternately. I declare before-hand I will not ftand to the award; my Title to your Friendship is good, and wants neither Deeds nor Writings to confirm it but annual acknowledgements at least are neceffary to preserve it and I begin to fufpect by your defrauding me of them, that you hope in time to dispute it, and to urge prescription against me. I would not fay one word to you about myself (fince it is a fubject on which you appear to have no curiofity) was it not to try how far the contraft between Pope's fortune and manner of life, and mine, may be carried.

I have been, then, infinitely more uniform and lefs diffipated than when you knew me and cared for me.

That

That Love which I used to scatter with fome profufion among the female kind, has been these many years devoted to one object. A great many misfortunes (for fo they are called, though fometimes very improperly) and a retirement from the world, have made that just and nice difcrimination between my Acquaintance and my Friends, which we have feldom fagacity enough to make for ourselves; those infects of various hues, which used to hum and buz about me while I ftood in the fun-fhine, have disappeared fince I lived in the fhade. No man comes to a Hermitage but for the fake of the Hermit; a few philofophical Friends come often to mine, and they are fuch as you would be glad to live with, if a dull climate and duller company have not altered you extremely from what you was nine years ago.

The hoarse voice of Party was never heard in this quiet place; Gazettes and Pamphlets are banished from it, and if the Lucubrations of Ifaac Bickerstaff be admitted, this diftinction is owing to fome strokes by which it is judged that this illuftrious Philofopher had (like the Indian Fohu, the Grecian Pythagoras, the Perfian Zoroafter, and others his Precurfors among the Zabians, Magians, and the Egyptian Seers) both his outward and his inward Doctrine, and that he was of no fide at the bottom. When I am there, I forget I ever was of any Party myself; nay, I am often fo happily abforbed by the abstracted reason of things, that

I am

I am ready to imagine there never was any fuch monfter as Party. Alas, I am foon awakened from the pleafing dream by the Greek and Roman Historians, by Guicciardine, by Machiavel, and Thuanus; for I have vowed to read no History of our own country, till that body of it, which you promise to finish, appears *.

I am under no apprehenfion that a glut of Study and Retirement should caft me back into the hurry of the world; on the contrary, the fingle regret which I ever feel, is that I fell fo late into this course of life; my Philosophy grows confirmed by habit, and if you and I meet again, I will extort this approbation from you: Jam non confilio bonus, fed more eo perauctus, ut non tantum recte facere poffim, fed nifi recte facere non poffim. The little incivilities I have met with from oppofite fets of people, have been fo far from rendering me violent or four to any, that I think myself obliged to them all; fome have cured me of my fears, by fhewing me how impotent the malice of the world is; others have cured me of my hopes, by fhewing how precarious popular friendships are; all have cured me of furprize. In driving me out of Party, they have driven me out of curfed company; and in ftripping me of Titles and Rank and Eftate, and fuch trinkets, which every man that will

* See the first note on Let. V. of this Vol.

W.