would carry your club to Arfellagh, when you are weary of one another. You exprefs your happiness with grief in one hand, and forrow in the other. What fowl have you but the weep? what hares, but Mrs Mack feden's grey hairs what peafe but your own? Your mutton and your weather are both very bad, and fo is your wether mutton. Wild fowl is what we like. How will this letter get to you? A fortnight good from this morning. You will find Quilca not the thing it was last Auguft; no body to relish the lake; no body to ride over the downs; no trout to be caught; no dining over a well; no night heroics, no morning-epics; no ftolen hour when the wife is gone; no creature to call you names. Poor miferable Mr Sheridan ! No blind harpers! no journeys to Rantavan! Answer all this, and be my magnus Apollo. We have new plays and new libels, and nothing valuable is old but Stella, whose bones fhe recommends to you. Dan* defires to know whether you faw the advertisement of your being robbed. And fo I conclude, Your's, &c. N LETTER CVI. Dr SWIFT to Dr SHERIDAN. Clonfert, Aug. 3. 1723. O; I cannot poffibly be with you fo foon; there are too many rivers, bogs, and mountains between: befides, when I leave this, I fhall make one or two short vifits in my way to Dublin, and hope to be in town by the end of this month; though it will be a bad time, in the hurry of your loufy pt. Your dream is wrong; for this bifhop + is not able to lift a cat upon my fhoulders. But if you are for a curacy of twenty five pounds a-year, and ride five miles every Sunday, to preach to fix beggars, have at you, And The Reverend Mr Dan. Jackfon. +Dr Theophilus Bolton, afterwards Bishop of Elphin, and Archbishop of Caffel. yet yet this is no ill country; and the Bishop has made in four months twelve miles of ditches, from his house to the Shannon, if you talk of improving. How are you this moment? Do you love or hate Quilca the most of all places? Are you in or out of humour with the world, your friends, your wife, and your fchool! Are the ladies in town or in the country! If I knew, I would write to them, and how are they in health? Quilca (let me fee) (you fee I can (if I please) make parentheses as well as others) is about a hundred miles from Clonfert; and I am half weary with the four hundred I have rode. With love and fervice, and fo adieu. Your's, &c. LETTER CVII.* Dr SWIFT to Dr SHERIDAN. Jan. 25. 1725. Have a packet of letters, which I intended to fend by Molly, who hath been stopt three days by the bad weather; but now I will fend them by the post to-morrow to Kells, and inclosed to Mr.Tickell†; there is one to you, and one to James Stopford. I can do no work this terrible weather; which hath put us all feventy times out of patience.- -I have been deaf nine days, and am now pretty well recovered again. Pray defire Mr Stanton and Worral |, to continue giving themselves fome trouble with Mr Prat ** let it fucceed or not, I hope I shall be easy. but Mrs Johnson fwears it will rain till Michaelmas. She is so pleased with her pick-ax, that she wears it fastened to her girdle on her left fide, in balance with her watch. The lake is ftrangely overflown, and we are defperate about turf, being forced to buy it three miles off: and * This feems to be written from Quilca. + Thomas Tickell, Efq; a very ingenious poet, secretary to the Lords Juftices of Ireland. Dr Stanton, a master in chancery. Reverend Mr John Worral, the Dean's vicar. ** Deputy Vice-treasurer of Ireland, M Mrs Johnson (God help her) gives you many a curfe. Your mafon is come, but cannot yet work upon your garden. Neither can I agree with him about the great wall. For the reft, vide the letter you will have on Monday, if Mr Tickell uses you well. The news of this country is, that the maid you fent down, John Farelly's fifter, is married; but the portion and fettlement are yet a fecret. The cows here never give milk on Midsummer-eve *. You would wonder, what carking and caring there is among us for fmall beer, and lean mutton, and starved lamb, and ftopping gaps, and driving cattle from the corn. In that we are all-to-be-Dingleyed. The ladies room fmokes; the rain drops from the fkies into the kitchen; our fervants eat and drink like the devil, and pray for rain, which entertains them at cards and fleep; which are much lighter than fpades, fledges, and crows. Their maxim is, Eat like a Turk, Sleep like a dormouse ; Be laft at work, At victuals foremost. Which is all at prefent; hoping you and your good fa mily are well, as we, &c. are all at this prefent writing, &c. Robin has juft carried out a load of bread and cold meat for breakfast. This is their way; but now a cloud hangs over them, for fear it should hold up, and the clouds blow off. I write on till Molly comes in for the letter. O, what a draggle-tail will fhe be before fhe gets to Dublin! I with the may not happen to fall upon her back by the way. I affirm against Ariftotle, that cold and rain congregate homogenes; for they gather together you and your crew, at whift, punch, and claret. Happy weather for Mrs Mau, Betty, and Stopford, and all true lovers of cards and laziness. * Being the time maids go out to try pranks about their sweethearts. Hawkef. The YOU Dr SWIFT to Dr SHERIDAN. Quilca, June 28. 1725. "OU run out of your time fo merrily, that you are forced to anticipate it, like a young heir, that fpends his fortune fafter than it comes in: for your letter is dated to-morrow, June 29. and God knows when it was writ, or what Saturday you mean: but I fuppofe it is the next; and therefore your own mare, and Dr Swift's horfe or mare, or fome other horfe or mare, with your own mare aforefaid, fhall fet out on Wednesday next, which will be June 30. and fo they will have two nights reft, if you begin your journey on Saturday. You are an unlucky devil, to get a living the furtheft in the kingdom from Quilca *. If it be worth two hundred pound a year, my Lord Lieutenant hath but barely kept * In the county of Cork. his word; for the other fifty must go in a curate and vifitation-charges, and poxes, proxies I mean. If you are under the Bishop of Cork *, he is a capricious gentleman: but you must flatter him monftrously, upon his learning and his writings; that you have read his book against Toland a hundred times, and his fermons (if he has printed any) have been always your model, &c. Be not disappointed, if your living does not anfwer the fum. Get letters of recommendation to the Bifhop and principal clergy, and to your neighbouring parfon or parfons particularly. I often advifed you to get fome knowledge of tythes and church livings. You muft learn the extent of your parish, the general quantity of arable land and pasture in your parish, the common rate of tythes, for an acre of the feveral forts of corn, and of fleeces and lambs, and to fee whether you have any glebe. Pray act like a man of this world. I doubt, being fo far off, you must not let your living, as I do, to the feveral farmers, but to one man: but, by all means, do not now let it for more than one year, till you are furely apprised of the real worth; and even then, never let it for above three. Pray take my advice for once, and be very bufy while you are there. It is one good circumftance, that you got fuch a living in a convenient time, and just when tythes are fit to be let ; only wool and lamb are due in fpring, or perhaps be long to the late incumbent. You may learn all on the fpot, and your neighbouring parfons may be very ufeful, if they pleafe; but do not let them be your tenants. Advise with Archdeacon Wall, but do not follow him in all things. Take care of the principal 'fquire, or 'fquires; they will ali tell you the worst of your living; fo will the proctors and tythe-jobbers; but you will pick out truth from among them. Pray, fhew yourself a man of abilities. After all, I am but a weak brother myself; perhaps fome clergy in Dublin, who know that country, will further inform you. Mr Townsend of Cork will do you any good offices on my account, with out any letter. Take the oaths heartily to the powers that be, and remember that party was not * Dr Peter Browne. made |