on a pleasant subject, only to tell what my friends and enemies will fay on me after I am dead". 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 my. 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 Lowchurch, as foon as they are left to think freely, all joining in opinion. If this be difaffection, pray God send me always among the difaffected; and I heartily wish you joy of your scurvy treatment at Court, which hath given you leifure to cultivate 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 honour he hath done me. My Lord, I could have fworn that my Pride would be always able to preserve me from Vanity; of which I have been in great danger to be guilty for fome months paft, firft by the conduct of my Lady Duchefs, and now by that of your Grace, which had like to finish the h This has been published, and is amongst the beft of his W. poems. the work and I fhould have certainly gone about fhewing 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 fteps of the next, fhould receive fuch condefcending 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 must defire your Grace not to flatter yourself, that I waited for Your Consent to accept the invitation. I must be ignorant indeed not to know, that the Duchefs, ever fince you met, hath been most politickly employed in encreafing those forces, and sharpening those arms with which she subdued you at first, and to which, the braver and the wiser 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 secret in her art of government, hath been to reduce both your wills into one; fo I am content, in due obfervance to the forms of the world, to return my most humble thanks to your Grace for fo great a favour as you are pleased to offer me, and which nothing but impoffibilities fhall prevent me from receiving, fince I am, with the greatest reason, truth, and respect, My Lord, Madam, Your Grace's most obedient, etc. I have confulted all the learned in occult sciences of my acquaintance, and have fate up eleven nights to difcover the meaning of thofe two hieroglyphical lines in your Grace's hand at the bottom of the last Aimsbury letter, but all in vain. Only 'tis agreed, that the language is Coptic, and a very profound Behmift affures me, the ftyle is poetic, containing an invitation from a very great perfon of the female fex to a ftrange kind of man whom the . never faw; and this is all I can find, which, after fo many former invitations, will ever confirm me in that refpect, wherewith I am, Madam, Your Grace's moft obedient, etc. LETTER LVII. MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT. December 1, 1731. γου you ou used to complain that Mr. Pope and I would not let you speak: you may now be even with me, and take it out in writing. If don't fend to me now and then, the poft-office will think me of no confequence, for I have no correfpondent but you. You may keep as far from us as you please, you cannot be forgotten by thofe who ever knew you, and therefore please me by fometimes fhewing that I am not forgot by you. I have nothing to take me off from my friendship to you: I feek no new acquaintance, and court no favour; I fpend no fhillings in coaches or chairs to levees or great vifits, and, as I don't want the affiftance of fome that I formerly conversed with, I will not so much as seem to seek to be a dependant. As to my ftudies, I have not been entirely idle, though I cannot fay that I have yet perfected any thing. What I have done is fomething in the way of thofe fables I have already published. All the money I get is by faving, fo that by habit there may be fome hopes (if I grow richer) of my becoming a mifer. All mifers have their excuses; the motive to my parfimony is independence. If I were to be represented by the Duchefs (fhe is fuch a downright niggard for me) this character might not be allowed me; but I really think I am covetous enough for any who lives at the courtend of the town, and who is as poor as myfelf: for I don't pretend that I am equally faving with Sk. Mr. Lewis defired you might be told that he hath five pounds of yours in his hands, which he fancies you may have forgot, for he will hardly allow that a Verfe-man can have a just knowledge of his own affairs. When you got rid of your lawfuit, I was in hopes that you had got your own, and was free from every vexation of the law; but Mr. Pope tells me you are not entirely out of your perplexity, though you have the security now in your own poffeffion; but still your cafe is not fo bad as Captain Gulliver's, who was ruined by having a decree for him with cofts. I have had an injunction for me against pirating bookfellers, which I am fure to get nothing by, and will, I fear, in the end drain me of fome money. When I began this profecution, I fancied there would be fome end of it; but the law ftill goes on, and 'tis probable I fhall fome time or other fee an Attorney's bill as long as the Book. Poor Duke Difney is dead, and hath left what he had among his friends, among whom are Lord Bolingbroke, 500 l. Mr. Pelham, 500 l. Sir William Wyndham's youngest fon, 500l. Gen. Hill, 500l. Lord Maffam's fon, 500 1, You |