LETTER XXIII.

October 2, 1727.

IT

is a perfect trouble to me to write to you, and your kind letter left for me at Mr. Gay's affected me fo much, that it made me like a girl. I can't tell what to fay to you; I only feel that I wish you well in every circumftance of life; that 'tis almost as good to be hated as to be loved, confidering the pain it is to minds of any tender turn, to find themfelves fo utterly impotent to do any good, or give any ease to those who deserve most from us. I would very fain know, as foon as you recover your complaints, or any part of them. Would to God I could cafe any of them, or had been able even to have alleviated any! I found I was not, and truly it grieved me. I was forry to find you could think yourself eafier in any houfe than in mine, though at the fame time I can allow for a tenderness in your way of thinking, even when it seemed to want that tenderness; I can't explain my meaning, perhaps you know it. But the best way of convincing you of my indulgence, will be, if I live, to vifit you in Ireland, and act there as much in my own way as you did here in yours. I will not leave your roof, if I am ill. To your bad health I fear there was added fome difagreeable news from Ireland, which might occafion your

fo

fo fudden departure: for the last time I saw you, you affured me you would not leave us this whole winter, unless your health grew better, and I don't find it did fo. I never complied fo unwillingly in my life with any friend as with you, in staying fo entirely from you; nor could I have had the conftancy to do it, if you had not promised that before you went we fhould meet, and would fend to us all to come. I

you

have given your remembrances to those you mention in yours we are quite forry for you, I mean for ourfelves. I hope, as you do, that we shall meet in a more durable and more fatisfactory ftate; but the less fure I am of that, the more I would indulge it in this. We are to believe, we shall have fomething better than even a friend there, but certainly here we have nothing fo good. Adieu for this time; may you find every friend you go to as pleased and happy, as every friend you went from is forry and troubled.

Yours, etc.

LETTER XXIV.

FROM DR. SWIFT.

Dublin, O&. 12, 1727.

I

HAVE been long reafoning with myself upon the condition I am in, and in conclufion have thought it best to return to what fortune hath made my home; I have there a large house, and fervants and conveniences about me. I may be worse than I am, and I have no where to retire. I therefore thought it best to return to Ireland, rather than to go to any diftant place in England. Here is my maintenance, and here my convenience. If it pleases God to restore me to my health, I fhall readily make a third journey; if not, we must part as all human creatures have parted. You are the best and kindeft friend in the world, and I know nobody alive or dead to whom I am fo much obliged; and if ever you made me angry, it was for your too much care about me. I have often wished that God Almighty would be fo eafy to the weakness of mankind as to let old friends be acquainted in another state; and if I were to write an Utopia for heaven, that would be one of my schemes. This wildness you must allow for, because I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be fick here, without the vexation of making my friends uneafy; yet my

giddinefs

giddinefs alone would not have done, if that unfociable comfortless deafness had not quite tired me. And I believe I fhould have returned from the inn, if I had not feared it was only a fhort intermiffion, and the year was late, and my licence expiring. Surely befides all other faults, I fhould be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and kindness. But it hath pleafed God that you are not in a state of health, to be mortified with the care and fickness of a friend. Two fick friends never did well together; fuch an office is fitter for fervants and humble companions, to whom it is wholly indifferent whether we give them trouble or no. The cafe would be quite otherwise if you were with me; you could refuse to see any body, and here is a large house where we need not hear each other if we were both fick. I have a race of orderly elderly people of both sexes at command, who are of no confequence, and have gifts proper for attending us; who can bawl when I am deaf, and tread foftly when I am only giddy and would fleep.

I had another reason for my hafte hither, which was changing my Agent, the old one having terribly involved my little affairs; to which however I am grown fo indifferent, that I believe I shall lose two or three hundred pounds rather than plague myself with accompts; fo that I am very well qualified to be a Lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray God continue and increase Mr. Congreve's amendment, though he does not deserve it like you, having

having been too lavish of that health which Nature gave him.

I hope my Whitehall-landlord is nearer to a place than when I left him; as the preacher faid, "the "day of judgment was nearer than ever it had been "before."

Pray God fend you health, det falutem, det opes; animam aquam tibi ipfe parabis. You fee Horace wifhed for money, as well as health; and I would hold a crown he kept a coach; and I fhall never be a friend to the Court, till you do fo too.

LETTER XXV.

FROM DR. SWIFT.

Yours, etc.

October 30, 1727.

HE firft letter I writ after my landing was to Mr. THE

Gay; but it would have been wifer to direct to Tonfon or Lintot, to whom I believe his lodgings are better known than to the runners of the Poft-office. In that Letter you will find what a quick change I made in feven days from London to the Deanery, through many nations and languages unknown to the civilized world. And I have often reflected in how few hours, with a swift horse or a strong gale, a man may come among a people as unknown to him as the

Antipodes.