this country) in a walk next the Mall. Your letters may possibly be false copies of your mind; and the universal, almost idolatrous esteem you have forced from every person in two kingdoms, who have the least regard for virtue, may have been only procured by a peculiar art of your own, I mean, that of bribing all wise and good men to be your flatterers. My literal mistakes are worse than your blots. I am subject to them by a sort of infirmity wherein I have few fellow-sufferers; I mean that my heart runs before my pen, which it will ever do in a greater degree, as long as I am a servant to your grace, I mean, to the last hour of my life and senses. I am, with the greatest respect and utmost gratitude, Madam, your grace's most obedient, most obliged, and most humble servant,

JON. SWIFT.

I desire to present my most humble respects and thanks to my lord Duke of Queensberry. For a man of my level, I have as bad a name almost as I desire; and I pray God, that those who give it me, may never have reason to give me a better.

SIR,

FROM LORD CARTERET.

March 24, 1732-3.

I HAD the favour of your letter of the 19th of February. A gentleman left it at my door. I have not heard from him since, though he said he would call again, and who he is I do not know. I shewed

it to my wife and Lady Worsley,* who will not fail to obey your commands, and tease me, if I could be forgetful of your orders, to attend the cause of the city of Dublin when it comes into the house. I know by experience how much that city thinks itself under your protection, and how strictly they used to obey all orders fulminated from the sovereignty of St. Patrick's. I never doubted their

compliance with you in so trivial a point as a recorder. You can give any one law and capacity in half an hour; and if by chance a rake should get those faculties any other way you can make the worthy citizens believe he has them not; and you can sustain any machine in a furred gown.

I thank you for the letter by Mr. Pilkington. I have seen him twice at a great entertainment at my lord mayor's, where you was the first toast. I like the young man very well, and he has great obligations to you, of which he seems sensible.

I hope Dr. Delany is well, and that you see one another often, and then the doctor won't have leisure to pursue his dissertations, or to answer the reverend prelate § on your side, who I hear has answered him. As I have not read the dissertations, so I shall not read the answer; which, I hope, without offence, I may suppose to be your case. If so, I hope you will endeavour to keep me well with the doctor, who took it a little unkindly of me that I would shut my eyes to such revelation, so demonstrated. I have a great esteem for him, to which

*His mother-in-law.

† Mr. Stanard was about this time chosen recorder for the city of Dublin, chiefly at the recommendation of Dr. Swift.-H.

Revelation examined with Candour.-B.

§ Dr. Robert Clayton, Bishop of Killala, January 23, 1729; translated to Cork, December 19, 1735; and to Clogher, August 26, 1745.

nothing that he can write upon those subjects can make any additions: and therefore, I would run no risk as to altering my opinion of him by reading

his books.

That health and prosperity may attend you, is my sincere wish; and I entreat you to believe that I am with great truth,

Sir,

Your most humble and obedient servant.

The whole family of my ladies send their compli

ments.

TO DR. SHERIDAN.

Dublin, March 27, 1733.

I RECEIVED your letter with some pleasure, and a good deal of concern. The condition you are in requires the greatest haste hither, although your school did not; and when you arrive, I will force Dr. Helsham to see and direct you; your scheme of riding and country air you find hath not answered, and therefore you have nothing to trust to but the assistance of a friendly, skilful doctor. For whether they can do any good or not, it is all we have for it; and you cannot afford to die at present, because the public, and all your family, have occasion for you. Besides, I do not like the place you are in, from your account, since you say people are dying there so fast. You cannot afford to lose daily blood but I suppose you are no more regular than you have been in your whole life. I like the article very much which you propose in your will; and if

that takes place forty years hence, and God for the sins of men should continue that life so long, I would have it be still inserted; unless you could make it a little sharper. I own you have too much reason to complain of some friends, who next to yourself have done you most hurt, whom still I esteem and frequent, though I confess I cannot heartily forgive. Yet certainly the case was not merely personal malice to you, (although it had the same effect,) but a kind of know-not-what job, which one of them hath often heartily repented: however, it came to be patched up. I am confident your collection of bon mots, and contes à rire, will be much the best extant; but you are apt to be terribly sanguine about the profits of publishing: however, it shall have all the pushing I can give. can give.* I have been much out of order with a spice of my giddiness, which began before you left us; I am better of late days, but not right yet, though I take daily drops and bitters. I must do the best I can, but shall never more be a night-walker. You hear they have in England passed the excise on tobacco, and by their votes it appears they intend it on more articles. And care is taken by some special friends here to have it the same way here. We are slaves already. And from my youth upward, the great wise men, whom I used to be among, taught me, that a general excise (which they now by degrees intend) is the most direct and infallible way to slavery. G-send it them in his justice, for they well deserve it. All your friends and the town are just as you left it. I humdrum it on, either on horseback, or dining and sitting the evening at home, endeavouring to write, but write nothing, merely out of

Pray

* It would seem the Doctor had thoughts of publishing the collections of jests and witticisms, which Swift elsewhere mentions.

indolence and want of spirits. No soul has broke his neck, or is hanged, or married; only Cancerina* is dead, and I let her go to her grave without a coffin and without fees. So I am going to take my evening walk after five, having not been out of doors yet. I wish you well and safe at home; pray call on me on Sunday night.

I am yours.

P.S.-I believe there are a hundred literal blunders, but I cannot stay to mend them.—So pick as you are able

I am not so frank a writer as you.

FROM LORD BATHURST.

MY MOST DEAR DEAN,

Cirencester, March 29, 1733.

I AM indebted to you for several scraps of paper, which you have sent me: but I waited to receive a letter from you, and then would have returned you an answer as well as I could. I obeyed your commands signified in your penultième; I attended your cause; your client happened to be in the right, and we are not a little in the wrong, that we gave no costs. I should have moved for them, but I had distinguished myself in pressing lords to attend, and told so many that I had your commands so to

One of those poor people to whom the Dean used to give money when he met them in his walks; some of them he named thus, partly for distinction, and partly for humour; Cancerina, Stompanympa, Pullagowna, Friterilla, Flora, Stumphantha.-D. S.