man. As to your venifon, vain is one who expects it. I am checking you for your chickens, and could lamb you for lambs. Addenda quaedam. My wife a-rattling, Your wife a fcold. You live among ill folks in a dunghill. Mrs. Whiteway is ever your friend; but your old ones have forfaken you, as mine have me. My head is very bad; and I have just as much spirits left as a drowned moufe. Pray do not give yourfelf airs of pretending to have flies in fummer at Cavan; and fuch a no fummer as this. 1, who am the best fly-catcher in the kingdom, have not thought it worth my time to fhow my fkill in that art. I believe nothing of your garden improvements; for I know you too well. What you fay of your leannefs is incredible; for when I faw you laft, you were as broad as long. But if you continue to breathe free, (which nothing but exercise • Dr, Jofiah Hrt, then Bishop of Kilmore. can can give), you may be safe with as little flesh as I, which is none at all. I had your letter juft before this was fealed; but I cannot answer it now. LETTER CXXXIV. Dr. SWIFT to Dr. SHERIDAN. July 10. 1736. Received your two letters. The firft is mingled with Latin and English, one following the other: now I fcorn that way, and put both languages in One. However, for the fake of order, I will begin with anfwering your fecond letter before the firft, because it deferves one on account of your prefents. From bogs, rivers, mountains, moffes, quagmires, heaths, lakes, kennels, ditches, weeds, &c. &c. &c. &c. Mrs. Whiteway was pleased. although very unjustly, to criticise upon every cu riofity. She fwears, the paper of gravel was of your own voiding, as the found by the fmell: that your whole archichoak leaf fhows its mother to be fmaller than a nutmeg: and I confess you were fomewhat unwary in expofing it to cenfure. Your rafberry fhe compared with the head of a corking. pin, and the latter had the victory. Your currants were invifible, and we could not distinguish the red from the black. Your purflane paffed very well with me, but the fwore it was houfe-leek. She denies your Cavan fly to be genuine : but will have it, that, for the credit of your town, you would have it born there, although Mrs Donaldfon confeffes it was fent her in a box of brown sugar, and died as it entered the gates. Mrs. Whiteway proceeds further in her malice, declaring your nafturtium to be only a p-fs a bed; your beans as brown as herfelf, and of the fame kind with what we fatten hogs in Leicestershire. In one thing fhe admires your generofity, that, for her fake, you would fpare a drop or two of your canal water, which, by the spongy bottom, needs it fo much. The only defects of them all were, that they wanted colour, fight, and fmell; yet, as to the laft, we both acknowledged them all to exhale a general fuftiness, which however did much resemble that of your Cavan air. LETTER CXXXV. Dr. SWIFT to Dr. SHERIDAN. Received your letter, which begun with lings*. You have thirteen in all, and I have got but an hundred and fixty; a trifle! Find me ten more than mine, and I will give you ten guineas for the eleventh Mine are all down, and only twelve, which are not entered in a letter; which I will fend you when health permits, and I have nothing else to do; and that may be a twelve-month hence, if my disorder will let me hold out fo long. You are born to be happy, for you take the leaft piece of good fortune chearfully. I fuppofe your arithmetic is, that three boys a-week are a hundred and fifty-nine in a year; and feven guineas a-week are three hundred and fixty-five per annum. Can you reckon that the county, and the next, and Dublin, * A termination whim fically applied. See the next letter. VOL. X. U will will provide you with thirty lads in all, and good pay, of which a dozen fhall be lodgers? Does the cheapnefs of things answer your expectation? Have you fent away your late younger-married daughter? and will you fend away the other? let me defire you will be very regular in your accounts; because a very honeft friend of your's and mine tells me, that, with all your honefty, it is an uneafy thing to have any dealings with you that relate to accounts, by your frequent forgetfulness and confufion; for you have no notion of regularity; and I do not wonder at it, confidering the fcattered, confufed manner in which you have lived. Mrs. Whiteway thanks you for the good opinion you have of her; and I know fhe always loved and defended I you. cannot tell when I fhall be able to travel. I have three other engagements on my hands, but the prin cipal is to fee the Bishop of Offóry. Yet I dread the lying abroad above five miles. I am never well. Some fudden turns are every day threatening me with a giddy fit; and my affairs are terribly embroiled. I have a scheme of living with you, when the college-green club is to meet: for in thefe times I deteft the town, and hearing the follies, corruptions, and flavish practices of thofe mifreprefentative brutes; and refolve, if I can ftir, to pass that whole time at Bath or Cavan. I fay again, keep very regular accounts, in large books, and a fair hand; not like me, who, to fave paper, confufe every thing. Your mind is honeft, but your, memory a knave; and therefore the Scotch mean the fame thing by minding, that we do by remembering Sirrah, faid I to a Scotch footman, why did you not go that errand? Because I did not mind it, quo' Sawny. A curfe on these twenty foldiers drumming through my liberty twice a day, and going to a barrack the government hath placed juft under * Called now the poddle-guard, and kept within the liberties of St. Patrick's to fupprefs riots. my my nofe. I think of a line in Virgil Travefty. The d-l cut their yelping weafons. We expect Lord Orrery and Bishop Rundle next week. — This letter was intended for laft poft, but interruptions and horfes hindered it. Poor Mrs. Achefon is relapfed at Grange, and worse than ever. I was there yesterday, and met Dr. H-m, who hopes fhe was a little better. 16. Here has no body been hanged, married, or dead, that I hear of. Dr. Grafton is confined by a boil; if you ask him where, he will fell you a bargain. My chief country-companion now is philofopher Webber; for the Grattans and Jacksons are neither to be found at home or abroad, except Robin, who cannot ftir a foot. LETTER CXXXVI, Dr. SWIFT to Dr. SHERIDAN. April 9. 1737. A Bout a month ago I received your laft letter, wherein you complain of my long filence what will you do when I am fo long in anfwering? I have one excufe which will ferve for all my friends; I am quite worn out with diforders of mind and body; a long fit of deafnefs, which ftill continues, hath unqualified me for converfing, or thinking, or reading, or hearing; to all this is added an apprehenfion of giddinefs, whereof I have frequently fome frightful touches. Befides, I can hardly write ten lines without twenty blunders, as you will fee by the number of fcratchings and blots before this letter is done in to the bargain, I have not one U 2 : rag |