TO THE DUKE OF CHANDOS.*

Aug. 31, 1734.

MY LORD, ALTHOUGH I have long had the honour to be an humble servant to your grace, yet I do not remember to have ever written you a letter, at least since her majesty's death. For this reason, your grace will reasonably wonder to find a man wholly forgotten begin a commerce by making a request. For which I can offer no other excuse, than that frequent application has been made to me, by many learned and worthy persons of this city and kingdom; who, having heard that I was not unknown to you, seldom failed any opportunity of pressing me to solicit your grace, of whose generous nature fame has well informed them, to make a present of those ancient records, in paper or parchment, which relate to this kingdom, that were formerly collected, as we have heard, by the late Earl of Clarendon, during his government here, and are now in your grace's possession. They can be of no use in England, and

* On this nobleman the Dean wrote a severe epigram beginning:

James Bridges and the Dean at first were friends, &c.,

which was probably occasioned by the miscarriage of the present application, in the course of which the Duke said the Dean was an entire stranger to him. See the circumstance alluded to in a letter to Lady Betty Germain, 8th June, 1735, and the epigram itself, Vol. XIV. p. 340.

+ These collections were made by Sir James Ware, the celebrated Irish antiquary, about the middle of the 17th century. They were acquired by Lord Clarendon, son of the historian, when lord-lieutenant, in 1686, brought by him into England, sold after his death, and purchased by the Duke of Chandos.

the sight of them will be of little value to foreign virtuosi; and they naturally belong to this poor kingdom. I could wish they were of great intrinsic value, so as to be sold on the Exchange for a thousand pounds, because you would then part with them at the first hint, merely to gratify your darling passion of generosity and munificence: and yet, since they are only valuable in the place of their birth, like the rest of our natives, I hope you will be prevailed on to part with them, at the humble request of many very deserving persons in this city. and university. In return for which bounty, the memory of it shall be preserved in that honourable manner, which so generous a patron of learning as your grace will be certainly pleased with. And at their request alone, I desire your compliance, without the least mention of myself, as any way instrumental.

I entreat your grace's pardon for this interruption; and remain, with the greatest respect, my Lord,

Your grace's, &c.

JON. SWIFT.

SIR,

FROM MRS. PENDARVES.

Little Brook Street, Sept. 9, 1734.

I FIND your correspondence is like the singing of the nightingale; no bird sings so sweetly, but the pleasure is quickly past; a month or two of harmony, and then we lose it till next spring; I wish your favours may as certainly return. I am, at this time, not only deprived of your letters, but of all other

means of inquiring after your health; your friends and my correspondents being dispersed to their summer quarters, and know as little of you as I do. I have not forgot one mortifying article on this occasion; and if your design in neglecting me was to humble me, it has taken effect; could I find out the means of being revenged, I would most certainly put it in execution; but I have only the malice of an incensed neglected woman, without the power of returning it. The last letter I writ to you was from Gloucester, about a twelvemonth ago; after that I went to Long-Leat to my Lady Weymouth; came to town in January, where I have remained ever since, except a few weeks I spent at Sir John Stanley's, at Northend, the Delville of this part of the world. I hope Naboth's vineyard flourishes; it always has my good wishes, though I am not near enough to partake of its fruits. The town is now empty, and, by most people, called dull; to me it is just agreeable, for I have most of my particular friends in town, and my superfluous acquaintance I can very well spare. My Lord Carteret is at Hawnes; my Lady Carteret is in town, nursing my Lady Dysart, who is brought to bed of a very fine son, and in hopes of my Lady Weymouth's being soon under the same circumstance. I have not seen my Lord Bathurst since I was at his house in Gloucestershire; that is a mischief I believe you have produced; for as long as I could entertain him with an account of his friend the Dean, he was glad to see me; but lately we have been great strangers. Mrs. Donnellan sometimes talks of making a winter's visit to Dublin, and has vanity enough to think you are one of those that will treat her kindly; her loss to me will be irreparable, beside the mortification it will be to me to have her go to a place where I should so gladly accompany her. I know she will

be just, and tell the reasons why I could not, this year, take such a progress. After having forced myself into your company, it will be impertinent to make you a longer visit, and destroy the intention of it; which was only to assure you of my being, Sir, your most faithful and obliged humble servant, M. PENDARVES.

FROM MR. POPE AND LORD BOLINGBROKE.

Sept. 15, 1734.

I HAVE ever thought you as sensible as any man I knew, of all the delicacies of friendship; and yet I fear, (from what Lord B. tells me you said in your last letter,) that you did not quite understand the reason of my late silence. I assure you it proceeded wholly from the tender kindness I bear you. When the heart is full, it is angry at all words that cannot come up to it; and you are now the man in all the world I am most troubled to write to, for you are the friend I have left whom I am most grieved about. Death has not done worse to me in separating poor Gay, or any other, than disease and absence in dividing us. I am afraid to know how you do, since most accounts I have give me pain for you, and I am unwilling to tell you the condition of my own health. If it were good, I would see you; and yet if I found you in that very condition of deafness, which made you fly from us while we were together, what comfort could we derive from it? In writing often I should find great relief, could we write freely; and yet when I have done so, you seem, by not

answering in a very long time, to feel either the same uneasiness I do, or to abstain from some prudential reasons. Yet I am sure, nothing that you and I would say to each other, (though our whole souls were to be laid open to the clerks of the post-office,) could hurt either of us so much, in the opinion of an honest man or good subject, as the intervening, officious impertinence of those goers between us, who in England pretend to intimacies with you, and in Ireland to intimacies with me. I cannot but receive any that call upon me in your name, and in truth they take it in vain too often. I take all opportunities of justifying you against these friends, especially those who know all you think and write, and repeat your slighter verses. It is generally on such little scraps that witlings feed; and it is hard the world should judge of our house-keeping from what we fling out to the dogs, yet this is often the consequence. But they treat you still worse, mix their own with yours, print them to get money, and lay them at your door. This I am satisfied was the case in the Epistle to a Lady; it was just the same hand, (if I have any judgment in style,) which printed your Life and Character before, which you so strongly disavowed in your letters to Lord Carteret, myself, and others. I was very well informed of another fact which convinced me yet more; the same person who gave this to be printed, offered to a bookseller a piece in prose of yours, as commissioned by you, which has since appeared and been owned to be his own. I think (I say once more) that I know your hand though you did not mine in the Essay on Man. I beg your pardon for not telling you, as I should, had you been in England ; but no secret can cross your Irish Sea, and every clerk in the post-office had known it. I fancy, though you lost sight of me in the first of those