never let it for above three. Pray take my advice for once, and be very busy, while you are there. It is one good circumstance that you got such a living in a convenient time, and just when tithes are fit to be let; only wool and lamb are due in spring, or perhaps belong to the late incumbent. You may learn all on the spot, and your neighbouring parsons may be very useful, if they please, but do not let them be your tenants. Advise with Archdeacon Wall, but do not follow him in all things. Take care of the principal squire or squires, they will all tell you the worst of your living; so will the proctors and tithe-jobbers; but you will pick out truth from among them. Pray show yourself a man of abilities. After all I am but a weak brother myself; perhaps some clergy in Dublin, who know that country, will further inform you. Mr Townshend of Cork will do you any good offices on my account, without any letter. Take the oaths heartily,* and remember that party was not made for depending puppies. I forgot one principal thing, to take care of going regularly through all the forms of oaths and inductions; for the least wrong step will put you to the trouble of repassing your patent, or voiding your living.

From this admonition, it would seem that Swift suspected Sheridan of a hankering towards jacobitical principles.

TO DR SHERIDAN.

Quilca, June 29, 1725.

I WROTE to you yesterday, and said as many things as I could then think on, and gave it a boy of Kells who brought me yours. It is strange that I, and Stella, and Mrs Mackfadin,* should light on the same thought to advise you to make a great appearance of temperance while you are abroad. But Mrs Johnson and I go further, and say, you must needs observe all grave forms, for the want of which both you and I have suffered. On supposal that you are under the Bishop of Cork, I send you a letter enclosed to him, which I desire you will seal. Mrs Johnson put me in mind to caution you not to drink or pledge any health in his company, for you know his weak side in that matter. I hope Mr Tickell has not complimented you with what fees are due to him for your patent; I wish you would say to him (if he refuses them) that I told you it was Mr Addison's maxim to excuse nobody; for here, says he, I may have forty friends, whose fees may be two guineas a-piece; then I lose eighty guineas, and my friends save but two a-piece.

1

I must tell you, Dan Jackson ruined his living by huddling over the first year, and then hoping to

*Mrs Mackfadin was mother to Dr Sheridan's wife.-H.

+ He wrote a pamphlet against drinking to the memory of the dead.-H. This may be at present thought a very odd subject for a treatise: But the healths to the glorious and immortal memory of King William were at this time a party signal, and occasioned many quarrels.

mend it the next; therefore pray take all the care you can to inquire into the value, and set it at the best rate to substantial people.

I know not whether you are under the Bishop of Cork or not; if not, you may burn the letter.

I must desire that you will not think of enlarging your expenses, no, not for some years to come, much less at present; but rather retrench them. You might have lain destitute till Antichrist came, for any thing you could have got from those you used to treat; neither let me hear of one rag of better clothes for your wife or brats, but rather plainer than ever. This is positively Stella's advice as well as mine. She says now you need not be ashamed to be thought poor.

We compute you cannot be less than thirty days absent; and pray do not employ your time in lolling a-bed till noon to read Homer, but mind your business effectually and we think you ought to have no breaking up this August; but affect to adhere to your school closer than ever; because you will find that your ill-wishers will' give out you are now going to quit your school, since you have got preferment, &c.

Pray send me a large bundle of exercises, good as well as bad, for I want something to read.

I would have you carry down three or four sermons, and preach every Sunday at your own church, and be very devout.

I sent you in my last a bill of twenty pounds on Mr Worral; I hope you have received it.

Pray remember to leave the pamphlet with Worral, and give him directions, unless you have settled it already some other way. You know it must come out just when the parliament meets.

Keep these letters where I advise you about your living, till you have taken advice.

Keep very regular hours for the sake of your health and credit; and wherever you lie a-night within twenty miles of your living, be sure call the family that evening to prayers.

I desire you will wet no commission with your old crew, nor with any but those who befriend you, as Mr Tickell, &c.

JON. SWIFT.

TO LORD CARTERET.*

MY LORD,

July 3, 1725.

I AM obliged to return your excellency my most humble thanks for your favour to Mr Sheridan, because when I recommended him to you, I received a very gracious answer; and yet I am sensible, that your chief motive to make some provision for him was, what became a great and good person, your distinguishing him as a man of learning, and one who deserved encouragement on account of his great

Lord Carteret's disposition to form a party in Ireland independent of that of Walpole, led him to favour the tories, and rendered him accessible to the various solicitations which Swift made in behalf of persons holding such principles. This conduct appeared rather suspicious to the leaders of the whig interest, in ridicule of whose fears and jealousies, Swift wrote his ironical apology for Lord Carteret, defending him against the charge of favouring the tories.-See Vol. VII.

diligence and success in a most laborious and difficult employment.*

Since your excellency has had an opportunity so early in your government of gratifying your English dependants by a bishopric, and the best deanery in the kingdom, † I cannot but hope that the clergy of Ireland will have their share in your patronage. There is hardly a gentleman in the nation, who has not a near alliance with some of that body; and most of them who have sons, usually breed one of them to the church; although they have been of late years much discouraged, and discontented, by seeing strangers to the country almost perpetually taken into the greatest ecclesiastical preferments; and too often, under governors very different from your excellency, the choice of persons was not to be accounted for either to prudence or justice.

The misfortune of having bishops perpetually from England, as it must needs quench the spirit of emulation among us to excel in learning and the study of divinity, so it produces another great discouragement, that those prelates usually draw after them colonies of sons, nephews, cousins, or old college companions, to whom they bestow the best preferments in their gift; and thus the young men sent into the church from the university here, have no better prospect than to be curates, or small country vicars, for life.

It will become so excellent a governor as you, a little to moderate this great partiality; wherein, as you will act with justice and reason, so you will gain the thanks and prayers of the whole nation, and take away one great cause of universal discontent. For I