and I wish I could promise fo well of you." The top of my own ambition is to contribute to that great work, and I fhall tranflate Homer by the by. Mr. Gay has acquainted you what progrefs I have made in it. I can't name Mr. Gay, without all the acknowledgements which I fhall ever owe you, on his account. If I writ this in verse, I would tell you, you are like the fun, and while men imagine you to be retir'd or abfent, are hourly exerting your indulgence, and bringing things to maturity for their advantage. Of all the world, you are the man (without flattery) who ferve your friends with the least oftentation; it is almost ingratitude to thank you, confidering your temper; and this is the period of all my letter which I fear you will think the most impertinent. I am with the trueft affection,

Your's, &c.

LETTER

LETTER II.

From Dr. SwIFT to Mr. POPE.

MY

c

Dublin, June 28, 1715. Y Lord Bishop of Clogher gave me your kind letter full of reproaches for my not writing. I am naturally no very exact correfpondent, and when I leave a country without probability of returning, I think as feldom as I can of what I loved or esteemed in it, to avoid the Defiderium which of all things makes life most uneafy. But you must give me leave to add one thing, that you talk at your eafe, being wholly unconcerned in public events: For, if your friends the Whigs continue, you may hope for fome favour; if the Tories return, you are at leaft fure of quiet. You know how well I loved both Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, and how dear the Duke of Ormond is to me: Do you imagine I can be eafy while their enemies are endeavouring to take off their heads? 1 nunc, & verfus tecum meditare canoros ---Do you imagine I can be eafy, when I think of the probable confequences of these proceed

Dr. St. George Ah, for- | wards Bishop of Clogher, merly a fellow of Trinity- and tranflated to the See of College, Dublin, (to whom Derry in 1716-17. the Dean was a Pupil) after

B 4

S.

ings,

ings, perhaps upon the very peace of the nation, but certainly of the minds of fo many hundred thousand good fubjects? Upon the whole, you may truly attribute my filence to the Eclipfe, but it was that Eclipse which happened on the first of August.

I borrowed your Homer from the Bishop (mine is not yet landed) and read it out in two evenings. If it pleaseth others as well as me, you have got your end in profit and reputation: Yet I am angry at fome bad Rhymes and Triplets, and pray in your next do not let me have so many unjustifiable Rhymes to war and gods. Itell you all the faults I know, only in one or two places you are a little obfcure; but I expected you to be fo in one or two and twenty. I have heard no foul talk of it here, for indeed it is not come over; nor do we very much abound in Judges, at least I have not the honour to be acquainted with them. Your notes are perfectly good, and fo are your Preface and Effay. You were pretty bold in mentioning Lord Bolingbroke in that Preface. I faw the Key to the Lock but yesterday: I think you have changed it a gool deal, to adapt it to the present times.

God

Put these two last obfer- | appear that Mr. Pope was vations together, and it will neither wanting to his friends

for

God be thanked I have yet no Parliamentary business, and if they have none with me, I shall never seek their acquaintance. I have not been very fond of them for fome years paft, not when I thought them tolerably good, and therefore if I can get leave to be absent, I shall be much inclined to be on that fide, when there is a parliament on this: but truly I must be a little eafy in my mind before I can think of Scriblerus.

You are to understand that I live in the corner of a vast unfurnished house; my family confists of a steward, a groom, a helper in the ftable, a footman, and an old maid, who are all at board-wages, and when I do not dine abroad, or make an entertainment (which laft is very rare) I eat a mutton pye, and drink half a pint of wine: My amusements are defending my fmall dominions against the Archbishop, and endeavouring to reduce my rebellious Choir. Perditur hæc inter mifere lux. I defire you will prefent my humble fervice to Mr. Addison, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Rowe, and Gay. I am, and will be always, extremely yours, &c.

for fear of party, nor would infult a miniftry to humour his friends. He faid of himfelf, and I believe he faid truly, that he never wrote a

line to gratify the animofity of any one party at the expene of another. See the letter to a noble lord.

LETTER

I

LETTER ÌII.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SWIFT.

June 20, 1716.

Cannot fuffer a friend to cross the Irish feas

without bearing a teftimony from me of the conftant esteem and affection I am both obliged and inclined to have for you. It is better he should tell you than I, how often you are in our thoughts and in our cups, and how I learn to fleep less a and drink more, whenever you are named among us. I look upon a friend in Ireland as upon a friend in the other world, whom (popishly-speaking) I believe conftantly well-difpofed towards me, and ready to do me all the good he can, in that state of separation, though I hear nothing from him, and make addreffes to him but very rarely. A proteftant divine cannot take it amifs that I treat him in the fame manner with my patron Saint.

I can tell you no news, but what you will not fufficiently wonder at, that I fuffer many things as an author militant: whereof, in your days of probation, you have been a fharer, or you had not arrived to that triumphant state

Alluding to his conftant custom of fleeping after dinner.