trifling fubjects: but riding, walking, and fleeping take up eighteen of the twenty-four hours. I procraftinate more than I did twenty years ago, and have feveral things to finish which I put off to twenty years hence; Hac eft vita folutorum, etc. I fend you the compliments of a friend of yours, who hath paffed four months this fummer with two grave acquaintance at his country-house without ever once going to Dublin, which is but eight miles diftant; yet when he returns to London, I will engage you shall find him as deep in the Court of Requests, the Park, the Opera's, and the Coffee-house, as any man there. I am now with him for a few days.

you

You must remember me with great affection to Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Congreve, and Gay.-I think there are no more eodem tertio's between and me except Mr. Jervas, to whose house I address this for want of knowing where you live: for it was not clear from your last whether you lodge with Lord Peterborow,

Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and deteft that animal called Man*, although I hearti ly love John, Peter, Thomas, and fo forth. This is the fyftem upon which I have governed myself many years, (but do not tell,) and so I shall

go on till I have done with them. I have got materials towards a Treatife, proving the falfity of that definition Animal rationale, and to fhew it fhould be only rationis capax. Upon this great foundation of Mifanthropy (tho' not in Timon's manner) the whole building of my Travels is erected; and I never will have peace of mind, till all honeft men are of my opinion; by confequence you are to embrace it immediately, and procure that all who deferve my esteem may do fo too. The matter is fo clear, that it will admit of no dispute; nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point.

I did not know your Odyffey was finished, being yet in the country, which I shall leave in three days, I thank you kindly for the prefent, but shall like it three-fourths the lefs for the mixture you mention of other hands; however, I am glad you faved yourself fo much drudgery.-I have been long told by Mr. Ford of your great atchievements in building and planting, and especially of your fubterranean paffage

to

* A fentiment that difhonours him, as a Man, a Chriftian, and a Philofopher! as indeed did his conduct towards Miss Vanhomrigh, and his cruelty to Mrs. Johnfon: which cannot be paliated nor pardoned,

to your garden, whereby you turned a Blunder into a Beauty, which is a piece of Ars Poetica.

I have almost done with Harridans, and shall foon become old enough to fall in love with girls of fourteen. The Lady whom you describe to live at Court, to be deaf, and no party-woman, I take to be Mythology, but know not how to moralize it. She cannot be Mercy, for Mercy is neither deaf, nor lives at Court: Justice is blind, and perhaps deaf, but neither is fhe a Court-lady: Fortune is both blind and deaf, and a Court-lady, but then she is a moft damnable Party-woman, and will never make me easy, as you promise. It must be Riches, which anfwers all your description: I am glad fhe vifits but my you, voice is fo weak, that I doubt fhe will never hear

me.

Mr. Lewis fent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very fenfible Affliction to me, who by living fo long out of the world, have loft that hardness of heart contracted by years and general converfation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels! But, however, he is not without fault. There is a paffage in Bede, highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that age, where after abundance of praises he overthrows them all, by lamenting that, alas! they kept Easter at a wrong time of the year. So our Doctor has every quality and virtue

that can make a man amiable or ufeful; but alas! he hath a fort of flouch in his walk! I pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Chriftian, though not a Catholic.

I hear nothing of our Friend Gay, but I find the Court keeps him at hard meat. I advised him to come over here with a Lord Lieutenant. Philips writes little Flams (as Lord Leicester called thofe fort of verses) on Mifs Carteret. A Dublin Blacksmith, a great poet, hath imitated his manner in a poem to the fame Mifs. Philips is a complainer, and on this occafion I told Lord Carteret, that Complainers never fucceeded at Court, though Railers do.

Are you altogether a country gentleman? that I must address to you out of London, to the hazard of your lofing this precious letter, which I will now conclude, altho' fo much paper is left. I have an ill Name, and therefore fhall not fubfcribe it, but you will guess it comes from one who esteems and loves you about half as much as you deserve, I mean as much as he can.

I am in great concern, at what I am just told is in fome of the news-papers, that Lord Bolingbroke is much hurt by a fall in hunting. I am glad he has fo much Youth and vigour left, (of which he hath not been thrifty,) but I wonder he has no more Difcretion.

LETTER XII.

October 15, 1725.

I

AM wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends, in proportion as you draw nearer to them; and are getting into our Vortex. Here is One, who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of fhining) learned to be content, with returning to his first point, without the thought or ambition of fhining at all. Here is Another, who thinks one of the greatest glories of his Father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again, than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised, but what is made up of a few men like yourself. He goes abroad again, and is more chearful than even health can make a man; for he has a good confcience into the bargain (which is the most Catholic of all remedies, tho' not the most Universal). I knew it would be a pleasure to you to hear this, and in truth that made me write fo foon to you.

I'm forry poor P. is not promoted in this age; for certainly if his reward be of the next, he is of all

Poets