LETTER XIII.

FROM DR. SWIFT.

Nov. 26, 1725.

I. SHOULD fooner have acknowledged yours, if a fe

my

verish disorder and the relics. of it had not difabled me for a fortnight. I now begin to make excufes, because I hope I am pretty near seeing you, and therefore I would cultivate an acquaintance; because if you do not know me when we meet, you need only keep one of my letters, and compare it with my face, for face and letters are counterparts of my heart. I fear I have not expreffed that right, but I mean well, and I hate blots: I look in your letter, and in my conscience you fay the fame thing, but in a better manner. Pray tell my Lord Bolingbroke that I wish he were banished again, for then I should hear from him, when he was full of philofophy, and talked de contemptu mundi. My Lord Oxford was fo extremely kind as to write to me immediately an account of his fon's birth; which I immediately acknowledged, but before the letter could reach him, I wished it in the fea: I hope I was more afflicted than his Lordship. "Tis hard that Parfons, and Beggars fhould be over-run with brats, while fo great and good a family wants an heir to continue it. I have received his father's picture, but I lament (fub figillo confeffionis) that it

is

is not fo true a resemblance as I could wish.

Drown the world! I am not content with defpifing it, but I would anger it, if I could with fafety. I wish there were an Hofpital built for its Defpifers, where one might act with fafety, and it need not be a large building, only I would have it well endowed. P** is fort chancellant whether he fhall turn Parfon or no. But all employments here are engaged, or in reverfion. Caft Wits and caft Beaux have a proper fanctuary in the church: yet we think it a fevere judgement, that a fine gentleman, and fo much the finer for hating Ecclefiaftics, fhould be a domestic humble retainer to an Irish Prelate. He is neither Secretary nor Gentleman-ufher, yet ferves in both capacities. He hath published feveral reafons why he never came to fee me, but the beft is, that I have not waited on his Lordship. We have had a Poem fent from London in imitation of that on Mifs Carteret. It is on Mifs Harvey, of a day old; and we fay and think it is yours. I wish it were not, because I am against monopolies.—You might have fpared me a few more lines of your Satire, but I hope in a few months to fee it all. To hear boys, like you, talk of Millenniums and tranquillity! I am older by thirty years, Lord Bo lingbroke by twenty, and you but by ten, than when we laft were together; and we should differ more than ever, you coquetting a maid of honour, my Lord looking on to fee how the gamesters play, and I railing at you both. I defire you and all my friends

will take a special care that my Difaffection to the world may not be imputed to my Age, for I have credible witneffes ready to depofe, that it hath never varied from the twenty-first to the f--ty-eighth year of my life (pray fill that blank charitably). I tell you after all, that I do not hate mankind, it is vous autres who hate them, because you would have them reafonable Animals, and are angry at being disappointed: I have always rejected that definition, and made another of my own. I am no more angry withthan I was with the Kite that last week flew away with one of my chickens; and yet I was pleased when one of my fervants fhot him two days after. This I fay, because you are fo hardy as to tell me of your intentions to write Maxims in oppofition to Rochefoucault, who is my favourite, because I found my whole character in him; however I will read him again, because it is poffible I may have fince undergone some alterations.-Take care the bad Poets do not out-wit you, as they have ferved the good ones in every age, whom they have provoked to tranfmit their names to pofterity. Mævius is as well known as Virgil, and Gildon will be as well known as you, if his name gets into your Verses: and as to the difference between good and bad fame*, 'tis a perfect trifle.

d. This, methinks, is no great compliment to heart.

I afk

his own

W.

* "I defire Fame," fays a certain Philofopher: "Let this occur: if I act well I shall have the esteem of all my acquaintance; and what is all the reft to me?"

I ask a thousand pardons, and fo leave you for this time, and will write again without concerning myself whether you write or no.

I am, etc.

LETTER XIV.

December 10, 1725.

I

FIND myself the better acquainted with you for a long Abfence, as men are with themselves for a long Affliction: Abfence does but hold off a Friend, to make one fee him the more truly. I am infinitely more pleased to hear you are coming near us, than at any thing you seem to think in my favour; an opinion which has perhaps been aggrandized by the distance or dulnefs of Ireland, as objects look larger through a medium of Fogs: and yet I am infinitely pleased with that too. I am much the happier for finding (a better thing than our Wits) our Judgments jump, in the notion that all Scribblers should be past by in filence. To vindicate one's felf against such nasty flander, is much as wife as it was in your countryman, when the people imputed a ftink to him, to prove the contrary by fhewing his backfide. So let Gildon and Philips reft in peace! What Virgil had to do with Mævius *, that he should wear him upon

*Or Pope with Tibbald, Concanen, and Smedley, &c.

his

fleeve

fleeve to all eternity, I don't know. I've been the longer upon this, that I may prepare you for the reception both you and your works may poffibly meet in England. We your true acquaintance will look upon you as a good man, and love you; others will look upon you as a Wit, and hate you. So you know the worft; unless you are as vindicative as Virgil, or the aforefaid Hibernian.

I wish as warmly as you for an Hospital in which to lodge the Defpifers of the world; only I fear it would be filled wholly like Chelsea, with maimed Soldiers, and fuch as had been disabled in its fervice. I would rather have those, that out of fuch generous principles as you and I, despise it, fly in its face, than retire from it; it would vex one more to be knocked on the head with a Piss-pot *, than by a Thunderbolt. As to greater Oppreffors, they are like Kites or Eagles, one expects mischief from them; but to be squirted to death (as poor Wycherley faid to me on his death-bed) by Apothecaries Apprentices, by the understrappers of under-fecretaries to fecretaries who were no fecretaries-this would provoke as dull a dog as Ph-s himself.

So

* Here is one of thofe vulgar and disgusting images on which our Author too much delighted to dwell. Dr. Delany, from his partiality to Swift, is of opinion, that the Dean caught his love of grofs and filthy objects from Pope. The contrary seems to be One would think this love contagious; fee two paffages in the View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philofophy, Letter II. pages 67