permit, which I believe is better than mine, for I have a constant giddiness in my head, and, what is more vexatious, as constant a deafness. I forget everything but old friendship and old opinions. I did desire you that you would, at your leisure, visit the few friends have left; I mean those of them with whom you have any acquaintance, as my lord and lady Oxford, my lord Bathurst, the countess of Granville, my lord and lady Carteret, my lord Worsley, my dear friend Mr. Pope, and Mr. Lewis, who always loved both you and me. My lord Masham and some others have quite dropped and forgot me. Is lord Masham's son good for anything? I did never like his disposition or education. Have you quite forgot your frequent promises of coming over hither, and pass a summer in attending your government in Derry and Colrane as well as your visitation at the deanery? the last must be for half the months of your stay. Let me know what is become of my lord Bolingbroke-how and where he lives, and whether you ever expect he will come home. Here has run about a report that the duke of Ormond has an intention, and some countenance, to come from his banishment, which I would be extremely glad to find confirmed. That glorious exile has suffered more for his virtues than ever the greatest villain did from the cruelest tyrant. I desire and insist that Mr. Dunkin may have the church-living upon Dr. Squire's decease, who I am still assured cannot long hold out; and I take it for granted that Mr. Richardson will have no objection against him. God preserve and bless you, my dear friend. I am ever, with true esteem and friendship, your most obedient humble servant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

FROM MR. POPE TO THE EARL OF ORRERY.

April 2, 1738. I WRITE by the same post that I received your very obliging letter. The consideration that you show toward me, in the just apprehension that any news of the dean's condition might alarm me, is most kind and generous. The very last post I wrote to him a long letter, little suspecting him in that dangerous circumstance. I was so far from fearing his health that I was proposing schemes and hoping possibilities for our meeting once more in this world. I am weary of it, and shall have one reason more, and one of the strongest that nature can give me (even when she is shaking my weak frame to pieces), to be willing to leave this world when our dear friend is on the edge of the other. Yet I hope, I would fain hope, he may yet hover a while on the brink of it, to preserve to this wretched age a relic and example of the last.

FROM MR. MACAULAY.

a Author of "A Treatise on Tillage," and of a pamphlet in favour of the tithes of the clergy, called "Property Inviolable." To this pamphlet the dean alludes in the clause of his will where he leaves Mr. Macaulay "the gold box in which the freedom of Dublin was presented to me, as a testimony of the esteem and love I have for him, on account of his great learning, fine natural parts, unaffected piety and benevolence, and his truly honourable zeal in defence of the legal rights of the clergy, in opposition to all their unprovoked oppression."

DR. KING TO MR. DEANE SWIFT.

St. Mary-hall, Oxon, April 25, 1738. DEAR SIR, I have just received your letter by Mr. Birt, for which I thank you. It is now more than a month since I wrote to Mrs. Whiteway to acquaint the dean with the difficulties I met with in regard to the publication of his history, and to desire his advice and directions in what manner I should proceed. I have not yet had any answer, and till I receive one I can do nothing more. I may probably hear from Ireland before you leave Monmouth, in which case I may trouble you with a packet.

I am pretty much of your opinion about the old poets, and perhaps may confirm you in your whimsies (as you call them) when I have the pleasure of seeing you here again. I heartily wish you a good journey and voyage: but methinks I can hardly excuse you for having been so long absent from us. I wish you had returned to this place, though for one week, because I might have talked over with you all the affair of the "History," about which I have been much condemned, and no wonder, since the dean has continually expressed his dissatisfaction that I have so long delayed the publication of it. However, I have been in no fault: on the contrary, I have consulted the dean's honour and the safety of his person. In a word, the publication of this work, as excellent as it is, would involve the printer, publisher, author, and every one concerned, in the greatest difficulties if not in a certain ruin, and therefore it will be absolutely necessary to omit some of the characters.

I thank you for the promise you make me concerning "The Toast."

Your friends here are all well. Believe me, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant,

WILLIAM KING.

FROM MISS RICHARDSON TO MRS. WHITEWAY. Belturbet, May 6, 1738. DEAR MADAM.-I received the favour of your letter last post. I was deprived of having that pleasure sooner by removing from Summerseat to this place the beginning of last month, where I was sent for by my father to attend him in a fit of the gout, of which he has been very ill these three months past. My sister, who takes care of him and his family, being near the time of her lying-in, I trouble you with this account that you may know how I am engaged at present, which I fear will prevent me having an opportunity of waiting upon you before my uncle

returns.

I most humbly thank you for your kind invitation, and do heartily wish it were any way in my power to let you know the grateful sense I have of my obligations to you. I hope the dean of St. Patrick's is very well: it would have given me infinite pleasure to have had the honour of being in his company with you.

When I parted with my uncle he proposed to make but a short stay in England at this time; and at his return he intended to leave nothing undone that he could think of to prevail with the dean and you to spend some time at his house this summer. I hope you will be so good as to give him all the assistance you can to persuade the dean to take that jaunt I really believe it would do him great service as to his health: I please myself greatly with the thoughts of having you there, and your daughter, whom I believe to be a very accomplished young lady, having had the happiness to be educated under your direction. I beg you will make my compliments to her; and be assured that I am, with great respect, madam, your most obedient and most humble servant, KATH. RICHARDSON.

Thursday, July 13, 1738. SIR, I desire you will print the following paper in what manner you think most proper. You see my design in it; I believe no man had ever more difficulty or less encouragement to bestow his whole fortune for a charitable use. I am your humble servant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

It is known enough that the above-named doctor has, by his last will and testament, bequeathed his whole fortune (except some legacies) to build and endow an hospital, in or near this city, for the support of lunatics, idiots, and those they call incurables; but the difficulty he lies under is, that his whole fortune consists in mortgages on lands and other the like securities; for as to purchasing a real estate in lands, for want of active friends he finds it impossible; so that, much against his will, if he should call in all his money lent, he knows not where to find a convenient estate in a tolerable part of the kingdom which can be bought; and in the mean time his whole fortune must lie dead in the hands of bankers. The great misfortune is that there seems not so much public virtue left among us as to have any regard for a charitable design, because none but the aforesaid unfortunate objects of charity will be the better for it. However, the said doctor, by calling in the several sums he has lent, can be able, with some difficulty, to purchase three hundred pounds per annum in lands for the endowment of the said hospital, if those lands could be now purchased, otherwise he must leave it, as he has done in his will, to the care of his executors, who are very honest, wise, and considerable gentlemen, his friends; and yet he has known some of very fair and deserved credit prove very negligent trustees. The doctor is now able to lend two thousand pounds, at five per cent., upon good security, of which the principal, after his decease, is to be disposed of by his executors, in buying lands for the further endowment of the said hospital.

FROM MR. RICHARDSON.

July 25, 1738. THERE are but very few things would give me a greater concern than the dean of St. Patrick's becoming indifferent toward me; and yet I fear one of those few things is the cause I have not had a line from you since I came hither. I beseech you ease me of my present pain, by telling me that you are well; that summer, which hath but lately reached us here, hath invited you, and tempted you to ride again.

If anything occurs to you I can do that is agreeable to you, if you have the least inclination to oblige me, let me know of it.

My hurry here is almost over; but one affair or other will detain me till the latter end of October, if I get away then. I cannot say I pass my time disagreeably. I have had some opportunities of doing good offices; and when I am not engaged by business I live with a few friends that I love, and love me, and, for the most part, go every week with one of them to the country for two or three days.

Your friend Bolingbroke is well, and at present with Mr. Pope. I am told he has sold Dawley. Alderman Barber, who has promised me to write to you by the next post, tells me his lordship inquired much

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about you and your health. The alderman plays his cards so as that his credit in the city daily increases. There is nothing but the vacancy wanted to put Mr. Dunkin in possession of the parish of Colrane.

I hear you have seen Pope's "First Dialogue, 1738." Have you seen his "Universal Prayer?" This "Second Dialogue," together with the copy of the inscription intended by the old duchess of Marlborough for a statue she is to erect of queen Anne, and a few lines attributed to lord Chesterfield on another sub

ject, wait on you enclosed.

Believe that I love as much as I admire you; and that I am, with the most perfect respect, dear sir, your most obliged and most truly faithful servant, WILLIAM RICHARDSON.

This packet goes franked by the secretary of the foreign office, who can frank any weight.

I expect the prime-serjeant here this night in his way to France.

LORD GOWER TO A FRIEND OF DEAN SWIFT. Trentham, August 1, 1738. SIR,-Mr. Samuel Johnson (author of " London," a satire, and some other poetical pieces) is a native of this country, and much respected by some worthy gentlemen in this neighbourhood, who are trustees of a charity-school now vacant; the certain salary is 60%. a-year, of which they are desirous to make him master; but, unfortunately, he is not capable of receiving their bounty, which would make him happy for life, by not being a master of arts; which, by the statutes of the school, the master of it must be.

Now these gentlemen do me the honour to think that I have interest enough in you to prevail upon you to write to dean Swift to persuade the university of Dublin to send a diploma to me, constituting this poor man master of arts in their university. They highly extol the man's learning and probity, and will not be persuaded that the university will make any difficulty of conferring such a favour upon a stranger, if he is recommended by the dean. They say he is not afraid of the strictest examination, though he is off so long a journey, and will venture it if the dean thinks it necessary, choosing rather to die upon the road than be starved to death in translating for booksellers, which has been his only subsistence for some time past.

I fear there is more difficulty in this affair than these good-natured gentlemen apprehend; especially as their election cannot be delayed longer than the 11th of next month. If you see this matter in the same light as it appears to me, I hope you will burn this, and pardon me for giving you so much trouble about an impracticable thing; but if you think there is a probability of obtaining the favour asked, I am sure your humanity and propensity to relieve merit in distress will incline you to serve the poor man, without my adding more to the trouble I have already given you than assuring you that I am, with great truth, sir, your faithful servant,

TO MR. RICHARDSON.

GOWER.

August 5, 1738.

SIR,-It was not my want of friendship and esteem that hindered me from answering your several letters, but merely my disorders in point of health; for I am constantly giddy, and so deaf that your friend Mrs. Whiteway has almost got into a consumption by bawling in my ears. I heartily congratulate with you on your triumph over your Irish enemies by a

a Henry Singleton, esq., whom Dr. Swift appointed one of his executors. He was afterwards lord chief-justice of the common pleas, which he resigned upon a pension, and was appointed master of the rolls in Ireland.

nemine contradicente. I leave the rest of this paper to be filled by Mrs. Whiteway; and am, with true esteem and gratitude, your most obedient and obliged servant, JONATHAN SWIFT. Pray tell my dear friend the alderman that I love him most sincerely; but my ill health and worse memory will not suffer me to write a long letter.

TO MR. ALDERMAN BARBER.

August 8, 1738. MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND,-I have received yours of July 27th; and two days ago had a letter from Mr. Pope, with a dozen lines from my lord Bolingbroke, who tells me he is just going to France, and I suppose designs to continue there as long as he lives. I am very sorry he is under the necessity of selling Dawley. Pray let me know whether he be tolerably easy in his fortunes; for he has these several years lived very expensively. Is his lady still alive? and has he still a country-house and an estate of hers to live on? I should be glad to live so long as to see his "History of his Own Times;" which would be a work very worthy of his lordship, and will be a defence of that ministry and a justification of our late glorious queen against the malice, ignorance, falsehood, and stupidity of our present times and managers. I very much like Mr. Pope's last poem, entitled "MDCCXXXVIII.," called Dialogue II.; but I live so obscurely and know so little of what passes in London, that I cannot know the names of persons and things by initial letters.

I am very glad to hear that the duke of Ormond lives so well at ease and in so good health, as well as with so valuable a companion. His grace has an excellent constitution at so near to fourscore. Mr. Dunkin is not in town, but I will send to him when I hear he is come. I extremely love my lord and lady Oxford; but his way of managing his fortune is not to be endured. I remember a rascally butcher, one Morley, a great land-jobber and knave, who was his lordship's manager, and has been the principal cause of my lord's wrong conduct, in which you agree with me in blaming his weakness and credulity. I desire you will please, upon occasion, to present my humble service to my lord and lady Oxford and to my lord Bathurst. I just expected the character you give of ***** young I hated him from a boy. I wonder Mr. Ford is alive; perhaps walking preserves him.

I very much lament your asthma. I believe temperance and exercise have preserved me from it.

I seldom walk less than four miles, sometimes six, eight, ten, or more, never beyond my own limits; or, if it rains, I walk as much through the house, up and down stairs; and if it were not for the cruel deafness I would ride through the kingdom and half through England; pox on the modern phrase Great Britain, which is only to distinguish it from Little Britain, where old clothes and old books are to be bought and sold! However, I will put Dr. Sheridan (the best scholar in both kingdoms) upon taking your receipt for a terrible asthma. I wish you were rich enough to buy and keep a horse, and ride every tolerable day twenty miles.

Mr. Richardson is I think still in London. I assure you he is very grateful to me, and is too wise and discreet to give any just occasion of complaint, by which he must be a great loser in reputation, and a greater in his fortune.

I have not written as much this many a day. I have tired myself much; but, in revenge, I will tire This is the " Mild Morley" of Prior's ballad of "Down

hall."

you. I am, dear Mr. Alderman, with very great esteem, your most obedient and most humble ser. vant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

TO MR. POPE AND LORD BOLINGBROKE. Dublin, August 8, 1738. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I have yours of July 25, and first I desire you will look upon me as a man worn with years, and sunk by public as well as personal vexations. I have entirely lost my memory, unca capable of conversation by a cruel deafness, which has lasted almost a year, and I despair of any cure. I say not this to increase your compassion (of which you have already too great a part), but as an excuse for my not being regular in my letters to you and some few other friends. I have an ill name in the post-office of both kingdoms, which makes the letters addressed to me not seldom miscarry, or be opened and read, and then sealed in a bungling manner before they come to my hands. Our friend Mrs. Blount is very often in my thoughts, and high in my esteem; I desire you will be the messenger of my humble thanks and service to her. That su perior universal genius you describe, whose handwriting I know towards the end of your letter, has made me both proud and happy; but by what he writes I fear he will be too soon gone to his forest abroad. He began in the queen's time to be my patron, and then descended to my friend.

It is a great favour of Heaven that your health grows better by the addition of years. I have absolutely done with poetry for several years past, and even at my best times I could produce nothing but trifles: I therefore reject your compliments on that score, and it is no compliment in me; for I take your second dialogue that you lately sent me to equal almost anything you ever writ; although I live so much out of the world that I am ignorant of the facts and persons, which I presume are very well known from Temple-bar to St. James's; I mean the court exclusive.

I can faithfully assure you that every letter you have honoured me with these twenty years and more are sealed up in bundles and delivered to Mrs. Whiteway, a very worthy, rational, and judicious cousin of mine, and the only relation whose visits can suffer. All these letters she is directed to send safely to you upon my decease.

My lord Orrery is gone with his lady to a part of her estate in the north; she is a person of very good understanding as any I know of her sex. Give me leave to write here a short answer to my lord B.'s letter in the last page of yours.

MY DEAR LORD,-I am infinitely obliged to your lordship for the honour of your letter and kind remembrance of me. I do here confess that I have more obligations to your lordship than to all the world beside. You never deceived me, even when you were a great minister of state; and yet I love you still more for your condescending to write to hardly hope to live till you publish your history, and me when you had the honour to be an exile. I can sqeezed in among the few subalterns, quorum pars am vain enough to wish that my name should be parva fui: if not I will be revenged, and contrive some way to be known to futurity, that I had the honour to have your lordship for my best patron; and gratitude, your most obedient, &c. and I will live and die, with the highest veneration

P.S. I will here in a postscript correct (if it be possible) the blunders I have made in my letter. I a Dr. Johnson laughs at Swift and Pope thinking their letters were opened and inspected by the postmaster as an instance of their self-importance.

TO MR. FAULKNER.

August 31, 1738. SIR, I believe you know that I had a treatise, called "Advice to Servants," in two volumes. The first was lost, but this moment Mrs. Ridgeway brought it to me, having found it in some papers in her room; and truly, when I went to look for the second I could not tell where to find: it if you happen to have it I shall be glad, if not, the messenger shall go to Mrs. Whiteway. I am, your humble servant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

FROM MRS. WHITEWAY TO MR. RICHARDSON. September 16, 1738. SIR, I have much pleasure in thinking I have executed your commands and alderman Barber's to both your satisfactions; and was greatly pleased yesterday to find the dean in spirits enough to be able to write you a few lines, because I know it was what you wished for. I declare it has not been by any omission of mine that it was not done long ago. Beside his usual attendants, giddiness and deafness, I can

I did; so I find your sex are not without a tincture of that female quality.

You have pressed me so much in every letter to find you employment, that to be rid of you I will now do it; for, without mentioning the words, entreat, favours, vast obligations, trouble, and a long &c., will you buy for me twenty yards of a pinkcoloured English damask? The colour we admire here is called a blue-pink. The woman will tell you what I mean. If you will be pleased, by the return of the post, to tell what will be the expense, I will pay the money immediately into Henry's bank. I own I am surprised at what you tell me of Mr. Philips; but envy you know is the tax on virtue, for no other reason could make him your enemy; and I most heartily wish whosoever is so may meet with the fate they deserve. I have just read so far of this letter, and am so much ashamed of the liberty I have taken to give you so much trouble, that, if I have truth in me, were it not for the dean's letter it should never go to you. If you can pardon me this, I promise for the future never to give you the like occasion of exerting your good nature to her who is with obedient humble servant, the greatest respect, sir, your most obliged and most M. WHITEWAY.

You forgot to date your letter.

FROM DR. SYNGE, BISHOP OF FERNS.

September 18, 1738. SIR, A message which I had just received from you

dom have shortened his days and sunk him even below the wishes of his enemies; and as he has lived the patriot of Ireland, like the second Cato, he will resign life when it can be no longer serviceable to his country.

As sir Robert Walpole has your best wishes, I am so far glad of his recovery."

My daughter is now very well, and most highly obliged to you for what you say about her. I was so little myself when I wrote to you last, with her illness, that I forgot to entreat the favour of your commands to Miss Richardson to take the opportunity of the summer season to come to this town; but the week after I wrote to her and insisted on her company immediately; but, by directing my letter to Summerseat instead of Colrane, I had not an answer till yesterday, and then one that did not satisfy me; for it is written with such deference and fear of doing anything without your positive orders, that I have very little to hope for from her. I shall for ever tax you with want of truth, sincerity, and breach of faith, if you do not command her to come immediately to town.

I showed Mr. Dunkin the paragraph in your letter that concerned him; for which and many other obligations he is under to you he owns himself most gratefully your obedient, &c. &c. Mr. Faulkner will send the books by the first that goes to England. How could you be so unpolite as to tell a woman you supposed her not to entertained with scandal? You will not allow us to be learned; books turn our brain; housewifery is below a genteel education; and work spoils our eyes: and will you not permit us to be proficients in gaming, visiting, and scandal? To convince you I am so in the last article, the poem pleased me mightily, and I had a secret pleasure to see the gentleman I showed it to liked it as well as

It is written just thus in the original. The correspondence in the present volume seems to be part of the collection here spoken of, as it contains not only the letters of Mr. Pope, but of Dr. Swift, both to him and Mr. Gay, which were returned to Mr. Pore after Mr. Gay's death; though any mention made by Mr. Pope of the return or exchange of letters has been industriously suppressed in the publication, and only appears by some of the

answers.

stored to my old place. Formerly I was your minister in musicis; but when I grew a great man (and by the by you helped to make me so) you turned me off. If you are pleased again to employ me I shall be as faithful and observant as ever.

I have heard Mr. Hughes sing often at Percival's,a Percival, who in these affairs is infallible. His and have a good opinion of his judgment; so has voice is not excellent, but will do: and if I mistake not, he has one good quality, not very common with the musical gentlemen, i. e. he is desirous to improve himself. If Mason and Lamb were of his temper, they would be as fine fellows as they think themselves. I ain, sir, your most obedient humble servant, EDWARD FERNS.

TO MRS. WHITEWAY.

MR. SWIFT'S gimcracks of cups and balls, in order to my convenient shaving with ease and despatch, together with the prescription on half a sheet of paper, was exactly followed, but some inconveniencies attended; for I cut my face once or twice, was just twice as long in the performance, and left twice as much hair behind, as I have done this twelvemonth past. I return him, therefore, all his implements and my own compliments, with abundance of thanks, because he hath fixed me during life in my old humdrum way. Give me a full and true account of all your healths, and so adieu. I am ever, & JONATHAN SWIFT.

October 3rd or 4th, or rather, as the butler says,

the 2nd, on Tuesday, 1738.