Grace's feet, till I can finish a paltry law-fuit. It concerns indeed almost all my whole fortune; it is equal to half Mr. Pope's, and two thirds of Mr. Gay's, and about fix weeks rent of your Grace's. This curfed accident hath drill'd away the whole fummer. But, Madam, understand one thing, that I take all your ironical civilities in a literal sense, and whenever I have the honour to attend you, shall expect them to be literally performed: though perhaps I fhall find it hard to prove your handwriting in a Court of juftice; but that will not be much for your credit. How miferably hath your Grace been mistaken in thinking to avoid Envy by running into exile, where it haunts you more than ever it did even at Court? Non te civitas, non Regia domus in exilium miferunt, fed tu utrafque. So fays Cicero (as your Grace knows) or fo he might have faid.

I am told that the Craftsman in one of his

papers is offended with the publishers of (I fuppose) the last edition of the Dunciad; and I was asked whether you and Mr. Pope were as good friends to the new disgraced perfon as formerly? This I knew nothing of, but suppose it was the consequence of fome mistake. As to writing, I look on you just in the prime of life for it, the very season when judgment and invention draw together. But schemes are perfectly

2

fectly accidental; fome will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful; and others the contrary: And what you say, is past doubt, that every one can beft find hints for himself: though it is poffible that sometimes a friend may give you a lucky one juft fuited to your own imagination. But all this is almost past with me: my invention and judgment are perpetually at fifty-cuffs, till they have quite disabled each other; and the meereft trifles I ever wrote are ferious philofophical lucubrations, in comparison to what I now busy myself about; as (to speak in the author's phrase) the world may one day fee.

LETTER LV.

September 10, 1731.

1F

IF your ramble was on horseback, I am glad of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between ftage-coaches and friends coaches: for you are as arrant a cockney as any hofier in Cheapfide. One clean shirt with two cravats, and as many handkerchiefs, make up your equipage; and as for a night-gown, it is clear from Homer,

• His ludicrous prediction | very much to his dishonour, was, fince his death, and seriously fulfilled.

that

I have of

that Agamemnon rose without one. ten had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up feven years to finish, befides two or three under ones, that may add another thousand pound to your stock; and then I fhall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without confidering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day. I find a greater longing than ever to come amongst you; and reafon good, when I am teazed with Dukes and Ducheffes for a vifit, all my demands comply'd with, and all excufes cut off. You remember, "O happy Don Quixote ! Queens "held his horse, and Ducheffes pulled off his "armour," or fomething to that purpose. He was a mean-spirited fellow; I can say ten times more; O happy, &c. fuch a Duchefs was defigned to attend him, and such a Duke invited him to command his Palace. Nam iftes reges ceteros memorale nolo, hominum mendicabula: go read your Plautus, and obferve Strobilus vaporing after he had found the pot of gold.---I will have nothing to do with that Lady: Ihave long hated her on your account, and the more, because you are fo forgiving as not to hate her; however, she has good qualities enough to make VOL. IX.

her

my

a

her esteemed; but not one grain of feeling. I only wish she were a fool.---I have been several months writing near five hundred lines on a pleasant fubject, only to tell what my friends and enemies will fay on me after I am dead 3. I fhall finish it foon, for I add two lines every week, and blot out four, and alter eight. I have brought in you and other friends, as well as enemies and detractors.---It is a great comfort to fee how corruption and ill conduct are inftrumental in uniting Virtuous perfons and Lovers of their country of all denominations : Whig and Tory, High and Low-church, as foon as they are left to think freely, all joining in opinion. If this be difaffection, pray God fend me always among the difaffected! and I heartily with you joy of your fcurvy treatment at Court, which hath given you leisure to cultiyate both public and private Virtue, neither of them likely to be foon met with within the walls of St. James's or Weftminster.---But I muft here difmifs you, that I may pay my acknowledgments to the Duke for the great ho

nour he hath done me.

My Lord,

I could have fworn that my Pride would be always able to preserve me from Vanity; of

* This has been published, and is amongst the best of his poems..

which I have been in great danger to be guilty for fome months paft, first by the conduct of my Lady Duchess, and now by that of your Grace, which had like to finish the work: And I should have certainly gone about shewing my letters under the charge of fecrecy to every blab of my acquaintance; if I could have the leaft hope of prevailing on any of them to believe that a man in so obscure a corner, quite thrown out of the prefent world, and within a few steps of the next, fhould receive fuch condescending invitations, from two fuch perfons, to whom he is an utter ftranger, and who know no more of him than what they have heard by the partial representations of a friend. But in the mean time, I muft defire your Grace not to flatter yourself, that I waited for Your Confent to accept the invitation. I must be ignorant indeed not to know, that the Duchefs, ever fince you met, hath been most politickly employ'd in encreafing those forces, and fharpning those arms with which the fubdued you at first, and to which, the braver and the wifer you grow, you will more and more fubmit. Thus I knew myself on the fecure fide, and it was a mere piece of good manners to infert that clause, of which you have taken the advantage. But as I cannot forbear informing your Grace that the Duchefs's great fecret in