TO THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON.1

London, Oct. [1717?}

Mrs. Whitworth (who, as her epitaph on Twitnam Highway assures us, had attained to as much perfection and purity as any since the Apostles) 2 is now deposited, according to her own orders, between a fig tree and a vine, there to be found at the last resurrection. I am just come from seeing your Grace in much the like situation-between a honeysuckle and a rose bush; where you are to continue as long as canvas can last. I suppose the painter by those emblems intended to intimate, on the one hand, your Grace's sweet disposition to your friends, and, on the other, to show you are near enough related to the Thistle of Scotland to deserve the same motto with regard to your enemies: Nemo me impune lacesset. Lord William will conster this Latine, if you send it to Thistleworth.

The two foregoing periods, methinks, are so mystical, learned, and perplexed, that if you have any statesmen or divines about you, they cannot choose but be pleased with them. One divine you cannot be without, as a good Christian, and a statesman you have lately had, for I hear my Lord Selkirk has been with you. But (that I may not be unintelligible quite to the bottom. of this page) I must tell your Grace, in English, that I have made a painter bestow the aforesaid ornaments round about you

1 So far as I know, this letter first appeared in the Annual Register, 1764, p. 222 but most probably copied from a newspaper or magazine; but I have never seen the original. I believe 1717 to be the date.-C.W.D. The Duchess of Hamilton was the widow of the Duke who was killed in a duel with Lord Mohun. See Letters of Swift to Esther Johnson.

2 This epitaph is thus referred to in Theobald's Censor, No. 27, for June 10, 1717-"I cannot dismiss this subject without taking notice of a monument, which has more ostentation in it than is decent on these occasions. It is erected on the side of a garden wall, on the entrance to the town of Twickenham, under which are laid the ashes of Mrs. Whitson [so he spells the name], a Quaker, and over which the inscription is engraved in stone."-C.W.D.

COMPARES THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON TO AN ELEPHANT. 433

(for upon you there needs none), and I am, upon the whole, pleased with my picture beyond expression. I may now say of your picture, it is the thing in the world the likest you, except yourself; as a cautious person once said of an elephantit was the biggest in the world, except itself.

You see, Madam, it is not impossible for you to be compared to an elephant, and you must give me leave to show you one may carry on the simile. An elephant never bends his knees, and I am told your Grace says no prayers. An elephant has a most remarkable command of his snout, and so has your Grace when you imitate my Lady Orkney. An elephant is a great lover of men, and so is your Grace for all I know; though, from your partiality to myself, I should rather think you loved little children.

I beg Mr. Blondel may know Dr. Logg 2 has received ordination, and enters upon his function this winter at Mrs. Blount's. They have chosen this innocent man for their confessor: and I believe most Roman Catholic ladies, that have any sins, will follow their example. This good priest will be of the order of Melchizedec, a priest for ever, and serve a family from generation to generation. He will stand in a corner as quietly as a clock, and, being wound up once a week, strike up a loud alarum to sin, on a Sunday morning. Nay, if the Christian religion should be abolished (as, indeed, there is great reason to expect it from the wisdom of the Legislature), he might, at worst, make an excellent bonfire, which is all that (upon a change of religion) can be desired from a heretic. I do not hope your Grace should be converted; but, however, I wish you would call at Mrs. B's out of curiosity. To meet people one likes is thought by some the best reason for going to church, and I dare promise you will

1 See Letters of Swift, page 131.

2 A joke may here be intended, for, in what I believe to be the answer of the Duchess, she speaks of "father Legg."-C. W. D.

1

like one another. They are extremely your servants, or else I should not think them my friends.

I ought to keep up the custom, and ask you to send me something. Therefore, pray, Madam, send me yourself, that is, a letter, and pray make haste to bring up yourself, that is, all I value, to town. I am, with the truest respect, the least ceremony, and the most zeal, &c.

To DR. ATTERBURY.2

8

Nov. 20, 1717.

I am truly obliged by your kind condolence on my father's death, and the desire you express that I should improve this incident to my advantage. I know your Lordship's friendship to me is so extensive, that you include in that wish both my spiritual and my temporal advantage; and it is what I owe to that friendship to open my mind unreservedly to you on this head.

It is true I have lost a parent for whom no gains I could make would be any equivalent. But that was not my only tie; I thank God, another still remains (and long may it remain) of the same tender nature. Genetrix est mihi, and excuse me, if

1 The Blounts of Mapledurham.

2 Bishop of Rochester. By his zeal in the Tory and High Church interest he had rapidly attained, in succession, the posts of Canon, Dean, and Bishop.

3 Atterbury had written: "When you have paid the debt of tenderness you owe to the memory of a father, I doubt not but you will turn your thoughts towards improving that accident to your own ease and happiness. You have it now in your power to pursue that method of thinking and living which you like best." The Bishop suggests the secession of Pope from the Church to which he only nominally, but constantly, adhered.

ON CONTROVERSIAL THEOLOGY.

435

I say with Euryalus :

Nequeam lachrymas perferre parentis.1

A rigid divine may call it a carnal tie, but sure it is a virtuous one. At least, I am more certain that it is a duty of nature to preserve a good parent's life and happiness than I am of any speculative point whatever :

Ignaram hujus quodcunque pericli

Hanc ego nunc linquam?

For she, my Lord, would think this separation more grievous than any other, and I, for my part, know as little as poor Euryalus did of the success of such an adventure: for an adventure it is, and no small one, in spite of the most positive divinity! Whether the change would be to my spiritual advantage, God only knows. This I know, that I mean as well in the religion I now profess as I can possibly ever do in another. Can a man, who thinks so, justify a change, even if he thought both equally good? To such an one the part of joining with any one body of Christians might, perhaps, be easy but I think it would not be so, to renounce the other.

Your Lordship has, formerly, advised me to read the best controversies between the Churches. Shall I tell you a secret? I did so at fourteen years old, for I loved reading, and my father had no other books: there was a Collection of all that had been written, on both sides, in the reign of King James the Second. I warmed my head with them, and the consequence was, that I found myself a papist and a protestant by turns, according to the last book I read. I am afraid most seekers are in the same case, and, when they stop, they are not so properly converted as outwitted. You see how little glory you would gain by my

1 See Encis IX. for the episode of Euryalus and Nisus. The next allusion is to Creusa, wife of Æneas, at the burning of Troy.—(Æn. II.)

2 Compare the account of Gibbon's temporary conversion to Catholicism as given by himself in his Memoirs. Gibbon was sixteen years of age at the time of his conversion.

conversion. And, after all, I verily believe your Lordship and I are both of the same religion, if we were thoroughly under. stood by one another, and that all honest and reasonable Christians would be so, if they did but talk enough together every day, and had nothing to do together but to serve God, and live in peace with their neighbour.

As to the temporal side of the question, I can have no dispute with you. It is certain all the beneficial circumstances of life, and all the shining ones, lie on the part you would invite me to.1 But, if I could bring myself to fancy, what I think you do but fancy, that I have any talents for active life, I want health for it, and, besides, it is a real truth, I have less inclination (if possible) than ability. Contemplative life is not only my scene, but it is my habit too. I begun my life where most people end theirs, with a disrelish of all that the world call ambition. I do not know why it is called so, for to me it always seemed to be rather stooping than climbing. I will tell you my political and religious sentiments in a few words. In my politics, I think no further than how to preserve the peace of my life, in any Government under which I live, nor in my religion, than to preserve the peace of my conscience in any Church with which I communicate. I hope all Churches and all Governments are so far of God, as they are rightly understood and rightly administered; and, where they are, or may be, wrong, I leave it to God alone to mend or reform them; which, whenever He does, it must be by greater instruments than I am.

2

I am not a papist, for I renounce the temporal invasions of the papal power, and detest their arrogated authority over

1 The Catholics, it is scarcely necessary to observe, at this time, and for another century, lay under political disabilities.

2 A sort of theological indifferentism which he has embodied in his Essay on Man:—

"For modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight:

His can't be wrong whose life is in the right," &c.