proceeding on the buildings agreed upon to be made at the first meeting of the subscribers; at which first meeting a second meeting may be agreed upon, and so from time to time.

The walling-in of the piece of ground intended for this use may go on as the fund will bear, without obstructing the first useful buildings. And whereas there are lunatics of several kinds, as the melancholy, &c., and some that are unruly by fits, a building must be designed for this sort; the floors not lofty, but made sufficiently airy, twenty feet wide, whereof ten for a gallery, and ten for lodges; each lodge eight or ten feet broad.

As there is a fund ****

DEAR SIR,

Herewith you have my thoughts of the affair you mentioned to me. I wish I could prevail on you to patronize it, and lay down your own scheme. I am most confident it cannot fail going on briskly. You have friends and interest enough to set it agoing, although there may be some grandees would rather other hands had the conduct of it; yet the work speaks so much for itself, they must be ashamed not to contribute, much more to obstruct it.

In the paper called The Proposal, I have considered the privatest and least expensive way of going to work, avoided public forms, and grandees interposing. Tom Thorn by chance I thought upon for that reason, and for preventing jobs, &c. what you please with my papers. I am just ditto.

Do

TO MR. ALDERMAN BARBER.

MY LORD ELECT,

Dublin, September 11, 1732.

I ANTICIPATE your title, because perhaps it may be your due before your chaplain, Mr. Pilkington, can attend you. And, besides, I have a mind to be the first person who gives it to you. And, first, I heartily acknowledge your goodness in favouring a young gentleman who has well answered all the recommendations that have been given me of him, and I have some years watched all opportunities to do him a good office, but none of the few things in my own gift that would be proper for him have fallen in my way since I knew him; and power with others, you know, or may believe, I have none. I value Mr. Pilkington as much for his modesty, as his learning and sense, or any good quality he has. And it would be hard, after your sending us over so many worthless bishops, all bedangled with their pert illiterate relations and flatterers, if you would not suffer us to lend you, at least for one year, one sample of modesty, virtue, and good sense; and I am glad it falls to your lordship to give the first precedent. I will write to Dr. Trapp in Mr. Pilkington's favour, but whether I have any credit with him I cannot tell, although, perhaps, you will think, I may pretend to some. It is by my advice that Mr. Pilkington goes over somewhat sooner; for I would have him know a little of your end of the town, and what he is to do; but he will not give you any trouble or care till you please to command him, which I suppose will not be till you are settled in your office.

Nothing but this cruel accident of a lameness

could have hindered me from attending your cere monial as a spectator, and I should have forwarded to the utmost, Mr. Pope's scheme, for I never approved the omission of those shows. And I think I saw, in my youth, a lord mayor's show with all that pomp, when Sir Thomas Pilkington,* of your chaplain's name and family, made his procession.

I have advised your chaplain to send you this letter, and not present it, that you may be in no pain about him, for he shall wait on you the next morning, when he has taken a lodging for himself, till you come into your mayoralty.

I cannot conclude without repeating my acknowledgments for your kind remembrance of me. We were both followers of the same court and the same cause, and exiles, after a sort, you a voluntary one,† and I a necessary: but you have out-thrown me many a hundred bars' length. I heartily wish the continuance of your good success, and am, with great truth,

Your most constant friend,

and most obedient humble servant.

JON. SWIFT.

* Sir Thomas Pilkington was lord mayor in three successive years; from 1689 to 1691. There is a broadside, containing an account of the festivities upon the occasion, drawn up by no less a person than Elkanah Settle, once the rival of Dryden. Pilkington's triumph was the more complete, as he had been a sufferer for his adherence to the Whig interest, in the reigns of Charles II. and his successor.

+ Barber, as appears from his correspondence in Vol. XVI., was a violent adherent of Lord Bolingbroke, and deemed it safe to retire abroad upon the accession of the Hanover line, on the same grounds, probably, which influenced his principal.

VOL. XVIII.

D

FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.

London, Nov. 7, 1732.

I SHOULD have answered yours sooner, but that I every day expected another from you, with your orders to speak to the duke; which I should with great pleasure have obeyed, as it was to serve friend of yours. Mrs. Floyd is now, thank God, in as good health as I have seen her these many years, though she has still her winter cough hanging upon her; but that, I fear, I must never expect she should be quite free from at this time of day. All my trouble with her now is, to make her drink wine enough according to the doctor's order, which is not above three or four glasses, such as are commonly filled at sober houses; and that she makes so great a rout with, and makes so many faces, that there is nobody that did not know her perfectly well, but would extremely suspect she drank drams in private.

I am sorry to find our tastes so different in the same person; and as everybody has a natural partiality to their own opinion, so it is surprising to me to find Lady Suffolk dwindled in yours, who rises infinitely in mine, the more and the longer I know her. But you say, "you will say no more of courts, for fear of growing angry;" and, indeed, I think you are so already, since you level all without knowing them, and seem to think, that no one who belongs to a court can act right. I am sure this cannot be really and truly your sense, because it is unjust; and if it is, I shall suspect there is something of your old maxim in it, (which I ever admired and found true,) that you must have offended them, because you do not forgive. I have been about a

fortnight from Knowle, and shall next Thursday go there again for about three weeks, where I shall be ready and willing to receive your commands, who am most faithfully and sincerely yours.

DEAR SIR,

FROM MR. GAY.

Nov. 16, 1732.

I AM at last come to London before the family, to follow my own inventions. In a week or fortnight I expect the family will follow me. You may

now draw upon me for your money, as soon as you please. I have some of my own too that lies dead; and I protest I do not know which way at present to dispose of it, everything is so precarious. I paid Mrs. Launcelot 12, and pay myself the five guineas you had of me, and have deducted your loss by paying off one of the South Sea bonds; and I find I have remaining of yours £211, 15s. 6d. And I believe over and above that sum, there will be more owing to you upon account of interest on the bonds, about four or five pounds. Mr. Hoare has done this for me, but I have not had time to call upon him yet, so that I cannot be more particular. As the money now lies in Mr. Hoare's hands, you see it is ready on demand. I believe you had best give notice when you draw on me for it, that I may not be out of the way. I have not as yet seen Mr. Pope, but design in a day or two to go to him, though I am in hopes of seeing him here to-day or to-morrow. If my present project succeeds, you may expect a better account of my own fortune a