FROM DR SWIFT TO MISS VANHOMRIGH.

Thursday morn. 10.

I will see you to-morrow if possible. You know it is not above five days since I saw you, and that I would ten times more if it were at all convenient, whether your Old Dragon come or no, whom I believe my people cannot tell what to make of, but take him for some conjuror.

Adieu.

FROM DR SWIFT TO MISS VANHOMRIGH.*

October 15, 1720.

I SIT down, with the first opportunity I have, to write to you, and the Lord knows when I can find conveniency to send the letter; for all the mornings I am plagued with impertinent visits or impertinent business below any man of sense or honour to endure, if it were any way avoidable. Dinners and afternoons and evenings are spent abroad, and in walking to ; and to avoid spleen as far as I can so that when I am not so good a correspondent as I could wish, you are not to quarrel and be Governor, but to impute it to my situation; and to conclude infallibly that I have the same respect,

* About one half of this letter has been printed; the passages within crotchets now appear for the first time.

esteem, and kindness for you I ever professed to have, and shall ever preserve, because you will always merit the utmost that can be given you, especially if you go on to read and still further improve your mind, and the talents that nature has given you. [I had a letter from your friend J. B. * in London, in answer to what I told you that Glassheel said about the money. J. B.'s answer is, that you are a person of honour; that you need give yourself no trouble about it; that that you will pay when you are able, and he shall be content till then. These are his own words, and you see he talks in the style of a very rich man, which he says he yet is, though terribly pulled down by the fall of stocks. I am glad you did not sell your annuities, unless somebody were to manage and transfer them while stocks were high.] I am in much concern for poor Molkin, and the more, because I am sure you are so too. You ought to be as cheerful as you can for both your sakes, and read pleasant things, that will make you laugh, and not sit moping with your elbows on your knees on a little stool by the fire. It is most infallible that riding would do Molkin more good than any other thing, provided fair days and warm clothes be provided; and so it would to you, and if you lose any skin, you skin, you know Job says, "Skin for skin will a man give for his life;" it is either Job or Satan says so, for ought you know. [Oct. 17. I had not a moment to finish this since I sat down to it. A person was with me just now, and interrupted me as I was going on, with telling me of

* John Barber.

+

In former editions this is printed our sakes, a variation slight in sou nd, but important in sense.

great people here losing their places, and now some more are coming about business. So adieu, till by and by, or to-morrow.] Oct. 18.-I am getting an ill head in this cursed town for want of exercise. I wish I were to walk with you fifty times about the garden, and then drink your coffee. I was sitting last night with half a score of both sexes for an hour, and grew as weary as a dog. [Glassheel takes up abundance of my time in spight of my teeth.] Every body grows silly and disagreeable, or I grow monkish and splenetic, which is the same thing. Conversation is full of nothing but South Sea, and the ruin of the kingdom, and scarcity of money. [I had a thousand times hear the Governor chide two hours without reason.

Oct. 20. The Governor was with me at six o'clock this morning, but did not stay two minutes, and deserves a chiding, which you must give when you drink your coffee next. I hope to send this letter to-morrow. I am a good deal out of order in my head, after a little journey I made; ate too much I suppose, or travelling in a coach after it. I am now sitting at home alone, and will go write to Molkins. So adieu.]

FROM MISS VANHOMRIGH TO DR SWIFT.

Cell Bridge, 1720.

You had heard from me before, but that my messenger was not to be had till to-day, and now I have only time to thank you for your's, because he was going about his business this moment, which is very

happy for you, or you would have had a long letter full of spleen. Never was human_creature more distressed than I have been since I came. Poor Molkin has had two or three relapses, and is in so bad a way, that I fear she will never recover. Judge now what a way I am now in, absent from you, and loaded with melancholy on her score. I have been very ill with a stitch in my side, which is not very well yet.

FROM MISS VANHOMRIGH TO DRSWIFT.*

Cell Bridge, 1720.

BELIEVE me it is with the utmost regret that I now complain to you, because I know your good-nature such, that you cannot see any human creature miserable, without being sensibly touched, yet what can I do? I must either unload my heart, and tell you all its griefs, or sink under the inexpressible distress I now suffer by your prodigious neglect of me. 'Tis now ten long weeks since I saw you, and in all that time I have never received but one letter from you, and a little note with an excuse. Oh, how have you forgot me. You endeavour by severities to force me from you, nor can I blame you; for with the utmost distress and confusion, I behold myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you, yet I cannot comfort you, but here declare, that 'tis not in the power of time or accident to lessen the inexpressible passion which I have for

Put my passion under the utmost restraint, send me as distant from you as the earth will allow, yet you cannot banish those charming ideas which will

*This letter has been already printed.

ever stick by me whilst I have the use of memory, Nor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul, for there is not a single atom of my frame that is not blended with it. Therefore, don't flatter yourself that separation will ever change my sentiments; for I find myself unquiet in the midst of silence, and my heart is at once pierced with sorrow and love. For Heaven's sake, tell me what has caused this prodigious change on you, which I have found of late If you have the least remains of pity for me left, tell me tenderly; No: Don't tell it, so that it may cause my present death, and don't suffer me to live a life like a languishing death, which is the only life I can lead, if you have lost any of your tenderness

for me.

FROM MISS VANHOMRIGH TO DR SWIFT.*

TELL me sincerely, if you have once wished with earnestness to see me, since I wrote last to you. No, so far from that, you have not once pitied me, though I told you how I was distressed. Solitude is insupportable to a mind which is not at ease. I have worn or my days in sighing, and my nights with watching and thinking of who thinks not of me. How many letters must I send you before I shall receive an answer? Can you deny me in my misery the only comfort which I can expect at pre

* This letter has been published with some literal and minute inaccuracies, which are here corrected from Mr Berwick's MS.