ness, that these advantages contribute to my ease, and therefore I value them. And in one part of your letter relating to Lord Bolingbroke and yourself, you agree with me entirely, about the indifference, the love of quiet, the care of health, &c., that grow upon men in years. And if you discover those inclinations in my lord and yourself, what can you expect from me, whose health is so precarious? and yet at your or his time of life, I could have leaped over the moon.

JON. SWIFT.

FROM MISS KELLY.

DEAR SIR,

Bristol, July 8, 1733.

I CANNOT express how much pleasure your letter gave me; to say that it surpassed the anxiety your silence gave me, is all the description I am able to make. Indeed I had a thousand fears about you; your health was my first care, and yet I thought, that the gods must take care of Cato; but I too fearfully apprehended that the whole club had quite forgotten the most unworthy member that ever entered into their society. For, though you writ to others, your hands were useless to me: and of all our little set none remained unblessed but myself; but as your letter has made me full amends for everything beside, I must be lavish in my thanks.

I am apt to believe that I really died on the road, as it was reported; for I am certainly not the same creature I once was; for I have grown fonder of reading, than of any other amusement, and except when health calls me on horseback, I find my only.

joys at home. But my life indeed has received great addition in its pleasures, by Mrs. Rooke's being so good to come down to me; she has all the qualities that can make an agreeable companion and friend; we live together without form, but have all the complacence for each other that true friendship inspires. You are sensible that two people cannot always like the same thing this we make easy, by following our inclinations; for if she likes to walk, she walks, and I do whatever I like better. Would to God you were with us to complete our happiness. I had a letter from Mrs. Cleland to inquire about you; she says, she hears you are coming to England; surely, if you were, you would tell me so; for few things in life could give me more true delight than the sight of you.

You are extremely good to enter into my affairs; all marks you give me of your friendship, increase my esteem for you, and make me bear the common rubs of life with patience. I have really been often tempted to let you into all my secrets; but the thought that you only could receive uneasiness from them, and that even your advice could not remove the least painful of them, hindered me from it: for to those I best love I still remain upon these heads reserved. Indeed the cause of my complaints is of such a nature, that it cannot well be told. The unhappy life of a near relation must give one a pain in the very repeating it, that cannot be described.* For surely to be the daughter of a Colonel Chartres, must, to a rational being, give the greatest anxiety; for who would have a father at seventy publicly tried for an attempt of a rape? Such a Dulcinea del

* The young lady alludes to the misconduct of her father. Mr. Kelly was an Irish gentleman of property, and remarkable as having been imprisoned on account of a Jacobite plot. It would seem he was attached to low intrigues and dissipation.

Toboso is shocking, I think. For if a man must do wrong, he should aim a little higher than the enjoyment of a kitchen-maid, that he finds obstinately virtuous. In short, dear Sir, I have been fool enough to let such things, make an impression on me, which, spite of a good constitution, much spirits, and using a great deal of exercise, has brought me to what I am. Were I without a mother, (I mean, had I lost her in my infancy, and not known her goodness,) I could still better have borne the steps that were taken; but while I saw how lavish he was upon his dirty wenches, I had frequent accounts that my mother was half-starved abroad. She brought him sixteen thousand pounds fortune, and having borne severe usage for near twenty years, had resolution enough to part with him, and chose to take two hundred and fifty pounds per annum separate maintenance, rather than bear any longer: and as she could not live here upon such an income, she has banished herself, and lives retired in a country town in France. His late letters to me have been kind, and hitherto he has supplied me well; but in his last he tells me he shall not see me till September.

What you say is perfectly right, and I propose returning to the club as soon as my health will permit me; but how long this may prove I know not; for I must still pursue this cruel god* that flies me.

I shall go from hence, I believe, in a week; for Lane only pours down medicines for the sake of the apothecary, and though he reaps the benefit of them, I receive none; and as he has not allowed me to drink the waters these three weeks, I can have no business here; so shall follow Holling's advice, and remove to Kensington or Hampstead with the utmost expedition; therefore, I must beg the favour of you

* The God of Health, poetically expressed.-D. S.

to enclose your letters for me to William Cleland, Esq., commissioner of taxes, in St. Stephen's Court, Westminster. I have disobeyed orders in writing so long a letter; but I will not do this again: so now be so good to excuse the tediousness of, Sir, your most obliged and most faithful humble servant, F. A. KELLY.

Write to me as often as you can, and make my compliments to all friends,

Mrs. Pendarves is gone down with Lady Weymouth, whose fortune was five thousand pounds, and has for jointure two thousand five hundred a-year, and five hundred a-year pin-money.

FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.

Knowle, July 9, 1733

"Now," says Parson Swift,* "what the devil makes this woman write to me with this filthy white ink? I cannot read a word of it, without more trouble than her silly scribble is worth."-"Why," say I again, "ay, it is the women are always accused of having bad writing implements; but, to my comfort be it spoke, this is his grace my lord-lieutenant's ink." My bureau at London is so well furnished, and his grace and his secretary make so much use

This is the name by which Lady Betty distinguishes the Dean, in the stanza which she inserted in his ballad on the Game of Traffic. We have already remarked, that in most of her letters there occur allusions to the poems which Swift wrote while he resided as chaplain with her father, Lord Berkeley.

of it, that they are often obliged to give me half-acrown, that I may not run out my estate in paper. It is very happy when a go-between pleases both sides, and I am very well pleased with my office; for his grace is delighted, that it was in his power to oblige you. So trève de compliment. Since I have declared my passion against a bishop and a parson, it is but fair I should tell you the story, whether you care to hear it or not: but if you do not, I give you leave not to mind it, for now it is over, I am calm again.

my

As to the bishop, I know neither his principles nor his parts, but his diocese is Peterborough; and having a small park in Northamptonshire, which I had a mind to increase by a small addition, to make house stand in the middle of it. Three shillings and sixpence worth of land, at the largest computation, belongs to the church; for which my old parson (who flatters me black and blue, when he comes for a Sunday-dinner, and says he loves me better than anybody in the world) has made me give him up, in lieu of that land, a house and ground that lets for 40s. a-year, and is hardly content with that, but reckons it a vast favour. And the bishop has put me to ten times more charge than it is worth, by sending commissioners to view it, and making me give petitions, and dancing me through his court; besides a great dinner to his nasty people. Now, am I not in the right to be angry? But perhaps you will say, if I will have my fancies, I must pay for them; so I will say no more about it. I hear poor Mrs. Kelly is not near so well as she says; and a gentleman that came from Bristol, says she looks dreadfully, and fears it is almost over with her, and that no mortal could know her; so ends youth and beauty! That is such a moral reflection, that lest it should make you melancholy, I will tell you some