Pray let us know what hopes we have of feeing you, and how foon; and be fo kind, or juft, to believe me always Your most faithful, JON. SWIFT. P. S. Mr Steele prefents his most humble service to you; and I cannot forbear telling you of your mechanceté, to impute the letter of enthusiasm to me, when I have fome good reasons to think the author is now at Paris. A Monfieur Monfieur HUNTER, gentilhomme Anglois, à Paris. I SIR, : London, March 22. 1708-9. AM very much obliged to you for the favour of a kind reproach you fent me, in a letter to Mr Addifon, which he never told me of till this day, and that accidentally but I am glad at the fame time, that I did not deferve it, having fent you a long letter, in return to that you was pleafed to honour me with; and it is a pity it should be loft; for, as I remember, it was full of the diei fabulas, and fuch particularities as do not ufually find place in news-papers. Mr Addison has been fo taken up for fome months, in the amphibious circumftances of premier c to my Lord Sunderland, and fecretary of state for Ireland, that he is the worst man I know, either to convey an idle letter, or deliver what be receives; fo that I defign, when I truft him with this, to give him a memorial along with it; for if my former has mifcarried, I am half perfuaded to give him the blame. I find you a little lament your bondage; and indeed, in your cafe, it requires a good fhare of philo fophy. But, if you will not be angry, I believe I may have been the cause you are ftill a prifoner; for I ima S 3 gine gine my former letter was intercepted by the French court; when the Moft Chriftian King reading one paffage in it, (and duly confidering the weight of the perfon who wrote it), where I said, if the French underftood your value as well as we do, he would not exchange you for Count Tallard, and all the Delris of Blenheim together; for, I must confefs, I did not rally when I faid fo. I hear your good fifter, the Queen of Pomunki, waits with impatience till you are restored to your dominions and that your rogue of a viceroy returns money fast for England, against the time he must retire from his government. Mean time, Philips writes verfes in a fledge upon the frozen fea, and tranfmits them hither, to thrive in our warmer clime, under the fhelter of my Lord Dorfet. I could fend you a great deal of news from the republica Grubfireetaria, which was never in greater altitude, though I have been of late but a small contributor. A cargo of fplinters from the Arabian rocks have been lately fhipwrecked in the Thames, to the irreparable damage of the virtuofi. Mrs long and I are fallen out. I fhall not trouble you with the cause, but don't you think her altogether in the wrong? But Mrs Barter is ftill in my good graces. I defign to make her tell me when you are to be redeemed, and will fend you word.- There's it now; you think I am in jest: but I affure you, the best intelligence I get of public affairs is from ladies; for the minifters never tell me any thing: and Mr Addifon is nine times more fecret to me than any body elfe, because I have the happiness to be thought his friend. The company at St James's coffeehouse is as bad as ever, but it is not quite fo good. The beauties you left are all gone off this froft, and we have got a new fet for fpring; of which Mrs Chetwynd and Mrs Worley are the principal. The vogue of operas holds up wonderfully, though we bave had them a year; but I defign to fet up a party among the wits, to run them down, by next winter, if true English caprice does not interpofe, to fave us the labour. Mademoiselle Spanheim is going to marry my Lord Fitzharding; at least I have heard fo; and, if you find it otherwife at your re turn, the confequences may poffibly be furvived. How ever, you may tell it the Paris gazetteer, and let me have the pleasure to read a lie of my own fending. I fuppofe you have heard, that the town has loft an old Duke, and recovered a mad Duchefs. -The Duke of Marlborough has at length found an enemy that dares face him, and which he will certainly fly before with the first opportunity; and we are all of opinion, it will be his wifeft courfe to do fo. Now, the way to be prodigioufly witty, would be by keeping you in fufpenfe, and not letting you know, that this enemy is nothing but this north-east wind, which ftops his voyage to Holland. This letter going in Mr Addifon's packet, will, I hope, have better luck than the former. I fhall go for Ireland fome time in fummer, being not able to make my friends in the miniftry confider my merits, or their promises, enough to keep me here; fo that all my hopes now terminate in my bifhoprick of Virginia. In the mean time; I hold fast my claim to your promise of correfponding with me, and that you will henceforward address your letter for me, at Mr Steele's office at the Cockpit, who has promifed his care in conveying them. Mr Domvil is now at Geneva, and fends me word, he is become a convert to the Whigs, by obferving the good and ill effects of freedom and flavery abroad. I am now with Mr Addison, and whom I have fifty times drank your health fince you left us. He is hur rying away for Ireland, and I can at prefent lengthen my letter no farther; and I am not certain whether you will have any from him or no, till he gets for Ireland. However, he commands me to affure you of his humble fervice; and I pray God too much business may not spoil le plus honnéte homme du monde; for it is certain, which of a man's good talents he employs on business, must be detracted from his converfation. I cannot write longer in fo goed company, and therefore conclude Your most faithful, and most humble fervant, J. SWIFT. LET 1 LETTER XCVIII. Dr SWIFT to Dr WILLIAM KING, Archbishop of Dublin. I My LORD, London, Oct. 10. 1710. Had the honour of your Grace's letter of September 16.; but I was in no pain to acknowledge it, nor fhall be at any other time, until I have fomething: that I think worth troubling you; because I know how much an infignificant letter is worse than none at all.. I had likewife your memorial *, &c. in another packet. I fhould have been glad the bishops had been here; although I take bifhops to be the worft folicitors in the world, except for themselves. They cannot give themfelves the little trouble of attendance, that other men are content to fwallow; elfe, I am fure, their two Lordships might have fucceeded eafier, than men of my level are likely to do. As foon as I received the packets from your Grace, I went to wait upon Mr Harley †. I had prepared him before by another hand where he was very intimate; and got myself reprefented (which I might justly do) as one extremely ill used by the laft miniftry after fome obligations, because I refused to go certain lengths they would have me. This happened to be in fome fort Mr Harley's own case. He had heard very often of me, and received me with the greatest marks of kindness and esteem ; as I was whispered he would; and the more upon the ill ufage I had met with. I fat with him two hours among company, and two hours we were alone; where I told him my business, and gave him the history of it which he heard as I could wish, and declared he would do his utmost to effect it. I told him the diffi culties we met with by Lord Lieutenants and their fecretaries; who would not fuffer others to folicit, and A memorial of the bishops and clergy of Ireland, concerning the firft-fruits and twentieth parts. + Lord High Treasurer of England, created afterwards Earl of Oxford. neglected neglected it themselves. He fell in with me entirely; and faid, neither they nor himself should have the merit of it, but the Queen, to whom he would fhew my memorial with the firft opportunity, in order, if pof fible, to have it done in this interregnum. I faid, the honour and merit, next to the Queen, would be his; that it was a great encouragement to the bishops, that he was in the treafury, whom they knew to be the chief adviser of the Queen to grant the fame favour in England; that confequently the honour and merit were nothing to him, who had done fo much greater things; and that, for my part, I thought he was obliged to the clergy of Ireland, for giving him an opportunity of gratifying the pleasure he took in doing good to the church. He took my compliment extremely well, and renewed his promifes. Your Grace will please to know, that, befides the firft-fruits, I told him of the crown-rents; and fhewed the nature and value of them; but faid, my opinion was, that the convocation had not mentioned them in their petition to the Queen, delivered to Lord Wharton with the addrefs, because they thought the times would not then bear it; but that I looked on myfelf to have a discretionary power to folicit it in fo favourable a juncture. I had two memorials ready of my own drawing up, as fhort as poffible, fhewing the nature of the thing, and how long it had been depending, &c. One of these memorials had a paragraph at the end relating to the crown-rents. I would have given him the last; but I gave him the other; which he immediately read, and promised to fecond both with his best offices to the Queen. As I have placed that paragraph in my memo. rial, it can do no harm, and may poffibly do good. However, I beg your Grace to fay nothing of it; but if it dieth, let it die in filence: we must take up with what we can get. I forgot to tell your Grace, that when I faid I was impowered, &c. he defired to see my powers: and then I heartily wished them more ample than they were: and I have fince wondered, what fcruple a number of Then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. bishops |