FROM THE COUNTESS GRANVILLE.*

DEAR SIR,

Hawnes, Nov. 27, 1733.

I HAVE received the honour of your commands, and shall obey them; for I am very proud of your remembrance. I do not know we ever quarrelled; but if we did, I am as good a Christian as you are, in perfect charity with you. My son, my daughter, and all our olive-branches salute you most tenderly. I never wished so much as I do now, that I were bright, and had a genius, which could entertain you, in return for the many excellent things that entertain me daily, which I read over and over with fresh delight. Will you never come into England, and make Hawnes† your road? You will find nothing here to offend you; for I am a hermit, and live in my chimney corner, and have no ambition, but that you will believe I am the charming Dean's

Most obedient humble servant,

GRANVILLE.

* Grace, widow and relict of George Lord Carteret, and daughter of John Granville, Earl of Bath. She was created Viscountess Carteret, and Countess Granville, 1st January, 171415, with limitation of those honours to her son John, the late Earl.-B.

† A seat of Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville, in Bedfordshire.-B.

SIR,

FROM MRS. CONDUITT.*

George-Street, Nov. 29, 1733.

MRS. BARBER did not deliver your letter till after the intended wedding brought me hither. She has as much a better title to the favour of her sex than poetry can give her, as truth is better than fiction; and shall have my best assistance. But the town has been so long invited into the subscription, that most people have already refused or accepted, and Mr. Conduitt has long since done the latter.

I should have guessed your holiness would rather have laid than called up the ghost of my departed friendship, which, since you are brave enough to face, you will find divested of every terror, but the remorse that you were abandoned to be an alien to your friends, your country, and yourself. Not to renew an acquaintance with one who can twenty years after remember a bare intention to serve him, would be to throw away a prize I am not now able to repurchase; therefore, when you return to England, I shall try to excel in what I am very sorry you want, a nurse; in the meantime, I am exercising that gift to preserve one who is your devoted

admirer.

Lord Harvey has written a bitter copy of verses upon Dr. Sherwin, for publishing (as it is said) his lordship's epistle; which must have set your brother Pope's spirits all a-working.

Thomson is far advanced in a poem of 2000 lines, deducing liberty from the patriarchs to the present

* Thus indorsed by the Doctor:-"My old friend Mrs. Barton, now Mrs. Conduitt."-D. S.

is now

times, which, if we may judge from the press, in full vigour. But I forget I am writing to one who has the power of the keys of Parnassus, and that the only merit my letter can have is brevity. Please therefore to place the profit I had in your long one to your fund of charity, which carries no interest, and to add to your prayers and good wishes now and then a line to, Sir, your obedient humble

servant,

C. CONDUITT.

Mrs. Barber, whom I had sent to dine with us, is in bed with the gout, and has not yet sent me her proposals.

SIR,

FROM MR. COOTE.*

London, Dec. 13, 1733.

BEING indebted solely to you for a most valuable acquaintance with the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, and some other of your friends, I ought to have acknowledged it before. It is a common stratagem of mine, and has always succeeded, to give hints in proper places of your allowing me to some degree of personal acquaintance with you, and

* This gentleman is mentioned in the Duchess of Queensberry's letter of 10th November preceding. He was father to Sir Charles Coote, who succeeded to the Earldom of Bellamont, in 1764. Swift had introduced Mr. Coote to several of his English friends, amongst others to Pope, with this remarkable recommendation, "Dear Pope, though the little fellow that brings this be a justice of peace and a member of our Irish House of Commons, yet he may not be altogether unworthy of your acquaintance."-Spence's Anecdotes, p. 350.

I owe to it most of the agreeable hours I passed at Spa this summer, where they were. I had strong temptations, especially at that distance, to give myself high airs this way; but finding the bare mention of my having been received by you in a most obliging manner, was enough to do my business, and it being a fact I could make oath of, I kept within due bounds. Her grace, who would be the most agreeable woman in England, though she were not the handsomest, has honoured me with her compliments to you with a walking-stick, the manufacture of Spa, where she had it made for you, and I ought to have delivered it two months ago; accidents prevented my leaving this place, and it is not certain when I can; so that I must send it to you by the first proper opportunity, but could no longer delay your pleasure in knowing it, and hers, when you shall acknowledge it. If I can be of any sort of service to you on this side, your commands will find me at St. James's coffee-house. I am, Sir, your most obliged humble servant,

CHARLES COote.

FROM DR. SHERIDAN.*

DEAR SIR,

Dec. 20, 1733.

YOURS I received, and if it was not that I have a good deel of company to sup at my up at my house upon beef griskins, I would go and play a game of backgammon with Mr. Worrall's tables, and be after win

* Indorsed, "Dr. Sheridan's insolence, in presuming to answer my eloquent Hibernicisms."-D. S.

ning some of Mrs. Worrall's coin; I would not fear to win a crown piece of her money by playing sixpence halfpenny a time. She is a very good body, and one that I have a great value for; I wish my spouse were but half as good, but of this I shall say nothing more till meeting. I hope my gossip Delany's spouse is upon the mending hand, for they tell me she has been lately much out of order. She is as good a woman as ever breathed, and it is a thousand pities that anything should ail her. God Almighty wish her well; for I am sure if she went off, the doctor would not meet with her fellow. I hope nothing ails her but a brush.

To-morrow I eat a bit with Mr. and Mrs. M'Gwyre; if you will make one, you will get as hearty a welcome, as if you were their own father; for nobody speaks better of you than they. My humble service to all friends and to yourself, is the request of yours to command,

THADY O SULIVAN.

I lodge hard by the Shovel in Francis Street.

TO MRS. PILKINGTON.

MADAM,

1733.

You must shake off the leavings of your sex. If you cannot keep a secret, and take a chiding, you will quickly be out of my sphere. Corrigible people are to be chid; those who are otherwise, may be very safe from any lectures of mine; I should rather choose to indulge them in their follies, than attempt