now,

them; and contemning my private fortune, would gladly cross the channel, and ftand by, while my betters were driving the boars out of the garden, if there be any probable expectation of fuch an endeavour. When I was of your age, I often thought of death; but after a dozen years more, it is never out of my mind, and terrifies me lefs. I conclude, that Providence hath ordered our fears to decrease with our fpirits: and yet I love la bagatelle better than ever; for finding it troublesome to read at night, and the company here growing tastelefs, I am always writing bad profe, or worse verfes, either of rage or raillery, whercof fome few escape to give offence or mirth, and the rest are burnt.

They print fome Irish trash in Lendon, and charge it on me, which you will clear me of to my friends; for all are fpurious except one paper *, for which Mr. Pope very lately chid me. I remember your Lordship used to say, that a few good fpeakers would in time carry any point that was right; and that the common method of a majority, by calling, To the question, would never hold long when reafon was on the other fide. Whether politics do not change, like gaming, by the invention of new tricks, I am ignorant; but I believe in your time you would never, as a minifter, have fuffered an act to pass through the H. of Cs, only becaufe you were fure of a majority in the H. of L's to throw it out: because it would be unpopular, and confequently a lofs of reputation. Yet this we are told hath been the cafe in the qualification-bill relating to penfioners. It fhould feem to me, that corruption, like avarice, hath no bounds. I had opportunities to know the proceedings of your miniftry better than any other man of my rank; and having not much to do, I have often compared it

Intitled, "A libel on Dr. Delany and a certain great Lord."

with thefe laft fixteen years of a profound peace all over Europe, and we running feven millions in debt. I am forced to play at fmall game, to set the beafts here a-madding, merely for want of better game: Tentanda via eft, qua me queque poffim, &c. .

-The d― take thofe politics, where a dunce might govern for a dozen years together. I will come in perfon to England, if I am provoked, and fend for the dictator from the plough. I difdain to fay, O mihi præteritos- -but cruda deo viridif que jenectus. Pray, my Lord, how are the gardens? have you taken down the mount, and removed the yew-hedges? Have you not bad weather for the fpring corn? Has Mr. Pope gone farther in his ethic poems? and is the head-land fown with wheat? and what fays Polybius? and how does my Lord St. John? Which laft question is very material to me, becaufe I love Burgundy, and riding. between Twickenham and Dawley. I built a wall five years ago; and when the mafons played the knaves, nothing delighted me fo much as to stand by, while my fervants threw down what was amifs. I have likewife feen a monkey overthrow all the dishes and plates in a kitchen, merely for the pleasure of feeing them tumble, and hearing the clutter they made in their fall. I wish you would invite me to fuch another entertainment: but you think, as I ought to think, that it is time for me to have done with the world, and fo I would, if I could get unto a better before I was called into the beft, and not die here in a rage, like a poifened rat in a hole. I wonder you are not afhamed to let me pine away in this kingdom, while you are out of power.

I come from looking over the melange above written, and declare it to be a true copy of my prefent difpofition; which muft needs pleafe you, fince

*Lord St. John of Battersea, fa her to Lord Bolingbroke.

nothing was ever more difpleafing to myfelf. I defire you to prefent my most humble refpects to my Lady.

I

LETTER XXXVIII.

Dr. SWIFT to Lord BOLINGBROKE.

Dublin, April 5. 1729.

Do not think it could be poffible for me to hear better news than that of your getting over your fcurvy fuit, which always hung as a dead weight on my heart. I hated it in all its circumftances, as it affected your fortune and quiet, and in a fituation of life that must make it every way vexatious. And as I am infinitely obliged to you for the juftice you do me, in fuppofing your affairs do at leaft concern me as much as my own; fo I would never have pardoned your omitting it. But, before I go on, I cannot forbear mentioning what I read laft fummer in a news-paper, that you were writing the hiftory of your own times. I fuppofe fuch a report might arife from what was not fecret among your friends, of your intention to write another kind of history; which you often promifed Mr. Pope and me to do. I know he defires it very much; and I am fure I defire nothing more, for the honour and love I bear you, and the perfect knowledge I have of your public virtue. My Lord, I have no other notion of oeconomy, than that it is the parent of liberty and eafe; and I am not the only friend you have who hath chid you in his heart for the neglect of it, though not with his mouth, as I have done. For there is a filly error in the world, even among friends otherwife very good, not to intermeddle with mens affairs in fuch nice

matters.

matters.

And, my Lord, I have made à maxim, that should be writ in letters of diamonds, That a wife man ought to have money in his head, but not in his heart. Pray, my Lord, inquire, whether your prototype, my Lord Digby, after the restoration, when he was at Bristol, did not take fome care of his fortune, notwithstanding that quotation Fonce fent you out of his fpeech to the H. of Commons? In my confcience, I believe Fortune, like other drabs, values a man gradually lefs for every year he lives. I have demonstration for it: because if I play at piquet for fixpence with a man or a woman two years younger than myself, I always lofe; and there is a young girl of twenty, who ncver fails of winning my money at back-gammon, though fhe is a bungler, and the game be ecclefiaftic. As to the public, I confefs nothing could cure my itch of meddling with it, but thefe frequent returns of deafnefs, which have hindered me from paffing last winter in London: yet I cannot but confider the perfidioufnefs of fome people, who I thought, when I was last there, upon a change that happened, were the most impudent in forgetting their profeffions that I have ever known. Pray, will you pleafe to take your pen, and blot me out that political maxim from whatever book it is in, That res nolunt diu male adminiftrari; the commonnefs makes me not know who is the author, but fure he must be fome modern.

;

I am forry for Lady Bolingbroke's ill health but I proteft I never knew a very deferving perfon of that fex, who had not too much reafon to complain of ill health. I never wake without finding life a more infignificant thing than it was the day before; which is one great advantage I get by living in this country, where there is nothing I fhall be forry to lofe. But my greatest mifery is recollecting the fcene of twenty years paft, and then all on a fudden dropping into the prefent. I remember, whenTM

A 3

I was

I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end of my line, which I drew up almoft on the ground, but it dropt in; and the difappointment vexes me to this very day; and I believe it was the type of all my future difappointments. I fhould be afhamed to fay this to you, if you had not a spirit fitter to bear your own misfortune, than I have to think of them.. Is there patience left to reflect, by what qualities wealth and greatness are got, and by what qualities they are loft? I have read my friend Con greve's verfes to Lord Cobham, which end with a vile and falfe moral, and I remember is not in Horace to Tibullus, which he imitates, That all "times are equally virtuous and vicious;" where> in he differs from all poets, philofophers, and Chri ftians, that ever writ. It is more probable, that there may be an equal quantity of virtues always in the world; but fometimes there may be a peck of it in Afia, and hardly a thimble full in Europe. But if there be no virtue, there is abundance of fincerity; for which Lwill venture all I am worth, that there is not one human creature in power, who will not be modeft enough to confefs, that he proceeds wholly upon the principles of corruption. I fay this, becaufe I have a fcheme, in fpite of your notions, to govern England upon the principles of virtue; and when the nation is ripe for it, I defire you will fend for me. I have learned this by living like a hermit, by which I am got backwards about nineteen hundred years in the era of the world, and begin to wonder at the wickedness of men. I dine alone upon half a difh of meat, mix water with my wine, walk ten miles a-day, and read Baronius. Hic explicit epiftola ad Dom. Bolingbroke, et incipit ad amicum Pope.

Having finished my letter to Aristippus, I now begin to you. I was in great pain about Mrs. Pope, having heard from others that he was in a very dangerous