son; when, at the same time, I feel myself, with the

most entire respect,

Madam, &c.

JON. SWIFT.

FROM LORD. BOLİNGBROKE.

Feb. 17, 1726-7.

THIS Opportunity of writing to you I cannot neglect, though I shall have less to say to you than I should have by another conveyance. Mr Stopford being fully informed of all that passes in this boisterous climate of ours, and carrying with him a cargo of our weekly productions, you will find anger on one side and rage on the other; satire on one side and defamation on the other. Ah! où est Grillon?* You suffer much where you are, as you tell me in an old letter of yours which I have before me; but you suffer with the hopes of passing next summer between Dawley and Twickenham; and these hopes, you flatter us enough to intimate, support your spirits. Remember this solemn renewal of your engagements. Remember, that though you are a dean, you are not great enough to despise the reproach of breaking your word. Your deafness must not be a hackney excuse to you as it was to Oxford. What matter if you are deaf? what matter if you cannot hear what we say? You are not dumb, and we shall hear you, and that is enough. My wife writes to you herself, and sends

* Lord Bolingbroke and Pulteney had now organized their attack upon the minister, by means of the Craftsman, and were doubtless sufficiently desirous to secure Swift as an auxiliary.

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you

you some fans just arrived from Lilliput, which will dispose of to the present Stella, whoever she be. Adieu, dear friend, I cannot, in conscience, keep you any longer from enjoying Mr Stopford's conversation. † I am burying myself here, that I may get a day or two for Dawley, where I hope that you will find me established at your return, There I propose to finish my days in ease, without sloth; and believe I shall seldom visit London, unless it be to divert myself now and then with annoying fools and knaves for a month or two. Once more adieu, no man loves you better than your faithful B

DEAR SIR,

FROM MR GAY.

Whitehall, Feb. 18, 1726-7.

I BELIEVE it is now my turn to write to you, though Mr Pope has taken all I have to say, and put it into a long letter, which is sent too by Mr Stopford: but however, I could not omit this occasion of thanking you for his acquaintance. I do not know whether I ought to thank you or not, considering I have lost him so soon, though he has given me some hopes of seeing him again in the summer. He will give you an account of our negociations together;

Mrs Johnson died the month preceding the date of this letter. But, considering the tenderness with which the Dean was known to regret her loss, this is a strange expression.-F.

† It would seem that this and the two following letters from Gay and Pope, went by favour of Mr Stopford, returning to Ireland, after the conclusion of his travels.

and I may now glory in my success, since I could contribute to his. We dined together to-day at the doctor's, who, with me, was in high delight upon an information Mr Stopford gave us, that we are likely to see you soon. My fables are printed; but I cannot get my plates finished, which hinders the publication. I expect nothing, and am like to get nothing. It is needless to write, for Mr Stopford can acquaint you of my affairs more fully than I can in a letter. Mrs Howard desires me to make her compliments; she has been in an ill state as to her health all this winter, but I hope is somewhat better. I have been very much out of order myself for the most part of the winter: upon my being let blood last week, my cough and my headach are much better. Mrs Blount always asks after you. I refused supping at Burlington-house to-night, in regard to my health; and this morning I walked two hours in the park. Bowrie told me this morning, that Pope had a cold, and that Mrs Pope is pretty well. The contempt of the world grows upon me, and I now begin to be richer and richer; for I find I could, every morning I awake, be content with less than I aimed at the day before. I fancy, in time, I shall bring myself into that state which no man ever knew before me. In thinking I have enough, I really am afraid to be content with so little, lest my good friends should censure me for indolence, and the want of laudable ambition, so that it will be abso lutely necessary for me to improve my fortune to content them. How solicitous is mankind to please others! Pray give my sincere service to Mr Ford. Dear Sir, yours most affectionately,

J. GAY

FROM MR POPE.

March 8, 1726-7,

MR STOPFORD will be the bearer of this letter, for whose acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you; and I think the acquaintance of so valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the least obligations.

Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleased with this joint volume, in which methinks we look like friends, side by side, serious and merry by turns, conversing interchangeably, and walking down hand in hand to posterity; not in the stiff forms of learned authors, flattering each other, and setting the rest of mankind at nought: but in a free, unimportant, natural, easy manner; diverting others, just as we diverted ourselves. The third volume consists of verses, but I would choose to print none but such as have some peculiarity, and may be distinguished for ours, from other writers. There's no end of making books, Solomon said, and above all making miscellanies, which all men can make. For unless there be a character in every piece like the mark of the elect, I should not care to be one of the twelve thousand signed.

You received, I hope, some commendatory verses from a horse and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic epistle of Mrs Gulliver. The bookseller would fain have printed them before the second edition of the book, but I would not permit it without your approbation: nor do I much like them. You see how much like a poet I write, and if you were with us, you would be deep in politics. People are very warm and very angry, very little to the pur

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pose, but therefore the more warm and the more angry: Non nostrum est tantas componere lites.* I stay at Twit'nam, without so much as reading newspapers, vetes, or any other paltry pamphlets: Mr Stopford will carry you a whole parcel of them, which are sent for your diversion, but not imitation. For my own part, methinks, I am Glubdubdrib, with none but ancients and spirits about me.

I am rather better than I use to be at this season, but my hand (though, as you see, it has not lost its cunning) is frequently in very awkward sensations,⚫ rather than pain. But to convince you it is pretty well, it has done some mischief already, and just been strong enough to cut the other hand, while it was aiming to prune a fruit-tree.

Lady Bolingbroke has writ you a long lively letter, which will attend this; she has very bad health, he very good. Lord Peterborow has writ twice to you; we fancy some letters have been intercepte, or lost by accident. About ten thousand things I want to tell you: I wish you were as impatient to hear them, for if so, you would, you must come early this spring. Adieu. Let me have a line from you. I am vexed at losing Mr Stopford as soon as I knew him: but I thank God I have known him no longer. If every man one begins to value must settle in Ireland, pray make me know no more of them, and I forgive you this one.