although he printed what I never would have done, yet he got the consent of my friends, and so I shall get nothing by being angry with him. He hopes, as a citizen, to be admitted to your lords and ladies in the country, and I am contented you shall make him welcome; but take care you put no manuscripts in his hands; otherwise, perhaps, there will be the works of the right hon., &c., and of my lady and the giant,* neatly bound, next winter. My Lady Acheson has not been well since she left the town ; but her mother is almost perfectly cured, except the loss of her eye. I owe my Lady Howth a letter, I believe. I desire my most humble service to her and the giant. I have time to say no more, but that I am, Your Lordship's most obedient servant, JON. SWIFT. TO MR. ALDERMAN BARBER. SIR, September 3, 1735. THE bearer, Mr. Faulkner, tells me, he has the honour to be known to you, and that I have credit enough to prevail on you to do him all the good offices that lie in your way. I presume he goes about some affairs that relate to his own calling, which would be of little value to him here, if he were * Miss Rice, his lordship's niece. Lucy, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-General Richard Gorges, was married to Lord Howth, August 2, 1728: and after that nobleman's death, became the lady of Nicholas Welden of Gravelment, Esq.-D. S. not the printer most in vogue, and a great undertaker, perhaps too great a one: wherein you are able to be the best adviser, provided he be not too sanguine, by representing things better than he probably may find them in this wretched, beggarly, enslaved country. To my great grief, my disorder is of such a nature, and so constantly threatening, that I dare not ride so far as to be a night from and yet when the weather is fair, I seldom fail to ride ten or a dozen miles. Mr. Faulkner will be able to give you a true journal of my life; that I generally dine at home, and alone, and have not two houses in this great kingdom, where I can get a bit of meat twice a-year. That I very seldom go to church for fear of being seized. with a fit of giddiness in the midst of the service. I hear you have likewise some ailments to struggle with, yet I am a great deal leaner than you: but I have one advantage, that wine is good for me, and I drink a bottle to my share every day, to bring some heat into my stomach. Dear Mr. Alderman, what a number of dear and great friends have we buried, or seen driven to exile since we came acquainted! I did not know, till six months after, that my best friend, my Lady Masham, was gone.* I would be glad to know whether her son be good for anything, because I much doubted when I saw him last. Tell me, do you make constant use of exercise? It is all I have to trust to, though not in regard to life but to health: I know nothing wherein years make so great a change as in the difference of matter in conversation and writing. My thoughts * Once the favourite of Queen Anne, and the moving spring of her last administration, but for many years a persona muta in the great political drama. Her death must have been the source of much melancholy reflection to the Dean, who had enjoyed her intimacy during the meridian of her influence. are wholly taken up in considering the best manner I ought to die, and how to dispose of my poor fortune for the best public charity. But in conversation I trifle more and more every day, and I would not give threepence for all I read, or write, or think, in the compass of a year. Well, God bless you, and preserve your life as long as you can reasonably desire. I take my age with less mortification, because, if I were younger, I should probably outlive the liberty of England, which, without some unexpected assistance from Heaven, many thousands now alive will see governed by an absolute monarch. Farewell, dear Sir; and believe me to be, with true esteem, Your most obedient humble servant, TO MR. POPE. JON. SWIFT. September 3, 1735. THIS letter will be delivered to you by Faulkner the printer, who goes over on his private affairs. This is an answer to yours of two months ago, which complains of that profligate fellow Curll. I heartily wish you were what they call disaffected, as I am. I may say as David, I have sinned greatly, but what have these sheep done! You have given no offence to the ministry, nor to the lords, nor commons, nor queen, nor the next in power. For you are a man of virtue, and therefore must abhor vice and all corruption, although your discretion holds the reins. "You need not fear any consequence in the com merce that has so long passed between us; although I never destroyed one of your letters. But my executors are men of honour and virtue, who have strict orders in my will to burn every letter left behind me." Neither did our letters contain any turns of wit, or fancy, or politics, or satire, but mere innocent friendship; yet I am loth that any letters, from you and a very few other friends, should die before me; I believe we neither of us ever leaned our head upon our left hand to study what we should write next; yet we have held a constant intercourse from your youth and my middle age, and from your middle age it must be continued till my death, which my bad state of health makes me expect every month. I have the ambition, and it is very earnest, as well as in haste, to have one epistle inscribed to me while I am alive, and you just in the time when wit and wisdom are in the height; I must once more repeat Cicero's desire to a friend: orna me. A month ago were sent me over by a friend of mine, the works of John Hughes, Esq.; they are in verse and prose. I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name as a subscriber too. He is too grave a poet for me, and I think among the mediocribus in prose as well as verse. I have the honour to know Dr. Rundle; he is indeed worth all the rest you ever sent us, but that is saying nothing, for he answers your character; I have dined thrice in this company. He brought over a worthy clergyman of this kingdom as his chaplain, which was a very wise and popular action. His only fault is, that he drinks no wine, and I drink nothing else. This kingdom is now absolutely starving, by the means of every oppression that can be inflicted on mankind-shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. You advise me right, not to trouble my self about the world: but oppression tortures me, and I cannot live without meat and drink, nor get either without money; and money is not to be had, except they will make me a bishop, or a judge, or a colonel, or a commissioner of the revenues. Adieu. JON. SWIFT. FROM MR. POPE. To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes, what he wanted as to genius he made up as an honest man but he was of the class you think him. I am glad you think of Dr. Rundle as I do. He will be an honour to the bishops, and a disgrace to one bishop; two things you will like: but what you will like more particularly, he will be a friend and benefactor even to your unfriended, unbenefited nation; he will be a friend to the human race, wherever he goes. Pray tell him my best wishes for his health and long life: I wish you and he came over together, or that I were with you. I never saw a man so seldom, whom I liked so much, as Dr. Rundle. Lord Peterborow I went to take a last leave of, at his setting sail for Lisbon: no body can be more wasted, no soul can be more alive. Immediately after the severest operation, of being cut into the bladder for a suppression of urine, he took coach, and got from Bristol to Southampton. This is a man that will neither live nor die like any other mortal. Poor Lord Peterborow! There is another string lost, that would have helped to draw you hither! he ordered on his death-bed his watch to be given me, |