we have lived many years together in an unreserved conversation; and that we may do so many more, is the sincere wish of Your, etc.

LETTER XIII.

TO MR. ADDISON.

YOUR last is the more obliging, as it hints at some little niceties in my conduct, which your candour and affection prompts you to recommend to me, and which (so trivial as things of this nature seem) are yet of no slight consequence, to people whom every body talks of, and every body as he pleases. 'Tis a sort of tax that attends an estate in Parnassus, which is often rated much higher than in proportion to the small possession an author holds. For indeed an author, who is once come upon the town, is enjoyed without being thanked for the pleasure, and sometimes ill-treated by those very persons who first debauched him. Yet, to tell you the bottom of my heart, I am no way displeased that I have offended the violent of all parties already; and at the same time I assure you conscientiously, I feel not the least malevolence or resentment against any of those who misrepresent me, or are dissatisfied with me. This frame of mind is so easy, that I am perfectly content with my condition.

As I hope, and would flatter myself, that you know me and my thoughts so entirely as never to be mistaken in either, so 'tis a pleasure to me that you guessed so right in regard to the author of that Guardian you mentioned. But I am sorry to find it has taken air, that I have some hand in those papers, because I write so very few as neither to deserve the credit of such a report with some people, nor the disrepute of it with others. An honest Jacobite spoke

to me the sense or nonsense of the weak part of his party very fairly, that the good people took it ill of me, that I writ with Steele, though upon never so indifferent subjects. This I know you will laugh at as well as I do; yet I doubt not but many little calumniators and persons of sour dispositions will take occasion hence to bespatter me. I confess I scorn narrow souls, of all parties, and if I renounce my reason in religious matters, I'll hardly do it in any other.

I can't imagine whence it comes to pass that the few Guardians I have written are so generally known for mine that in particular which you mention I never discovered to any man but the publisher, till very lately: yet almost every body told me of it.

As to his taking a more politic turn, I cannot any way enter into that secret, nor have I been let into it, any more than into the rest of his politics. Though 'tis said he will take into these papers also several sub. jects of the politer kind, as before: but, I assure you, as to myself, I have quite done with them for the future. The little I have done, and the great respect I bear Mr. Steele as a man of wit, has rendered me a suspected Whig to some of the violent; but (as old Dryden said before me) 'tis not the violent I design to please.

I generally employ the mornings in painting with with Mr. Jervas', and the evenings in the conversation of such as I think can most improve my mind, of whatever denomination they are. I ever must set the highest value upon men of truly great, that is, honest principles, with equal capacities. The best way I know of overcoming calumny and misconstruction, is by a vigorous perseverance in every thing we know to be right, and a total neglect of all that can ensue from it. 'Tis partly from this maxim that I depend upon your friendship, because I believe it would do

* See the Epistle to him in verse, writ about this time.

justice to my intention in every thing; and give me leave to tell you, that (as the world goes) this is no small assurance I repose in you. I am,

Your, etc.

LETTER XIV.

TO MR. ADDISON.

Dec. 14, 1713.

I HAVE been lying in wait for my own imagination, this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter. But I am at

length convinced that my rambling head can produce nothing of that sort; so I must e'en be contented with telling you the old story, that I love you heartily. I have often found by experience, that nature and truth, though never so low or vulgar, are yet pleasing when openly and artlessly represented: it would be diverting to me to read the very letters of an infant, could it write its innocent inconsistences and tautologies just as it thought them. This makes me hope a letter from me will not be unwelcome to you, when I am conscious I write with more unreservedness than ever man wrote, or perhaps talked to another. trust your good-nature with the whole range of my follies, and really love you so well, that I would rather you should pardon me than esteem me; since one is an act of goodness and benevolence, the other a kind of constrained deference.

I

You can't wonder my thoughts are scarce consistent, when I tell you how they are distracted. Every hour of my life my mind is strangely divided; this minute perhaps I am above the stars, with a thousand systems round about me, looking forward into a vast abyss, and loosing my whole comprehension in the boundless space of creation, in dialogues with

Whiston and the Astronomers; the next moment I am below all trifles groveling with T in the very centre of nonsense: now I am recreated with the brisk sallies and quick turns of wit which Mr. Steele in his liveliest and freest humours darts about him ; and now levelling my application to the insignificant observations and quirks of grammar of C and D *. Good God! what an incongruous animal is man! how unsettled in his best part, his soul! and how changing and variable in his frame of body! the constancy of the one shook by every notion, the temperament of the other affected by every blast of wind! What is he altogether but one mighty inconsistency; sickness and pain is the lot of one half of him; doubt and fear the portion of the other! What a bustle we make about passing our time, when all our space is but a point! what aims and ambitions are crowded into this little instant of our life, which (as Shakepear finely words it) is rounded with a sleep! Our whole extent of being is no more in the eye of him who gave it, than a scarce perceptible moment of duration. Those animals whose circle of living is limited to three or four hours, as the naturalists tell us, are yet as long-lived and possess as wide a scene of action as man, if we consider him with a view to all space, and all eternity. Who knows what plots, what atchievements a mite may perform in his kingdom of a grain of dust, within his life of some minutes; and of how much less consideration than even this, is the life of man in the sight of God, who is from ever, and for ever?

Who that thinks in this train, but must see the world, and its contemptible grandeurs, lessen before him at every thought? 'Tis enough to make one remain stupified in a poize of inaction, void of all desires, of all designs, of all friendships.

But we must return (through our very condition of being) to our narrow selves, and those things that

affect ourselves: our passions, our interests flow in upon us, and unphilosophize us into mere mortals. For my part, I never return so much into myself, as when I think of you, whose friendship is one of the best comforts I have for the insignificancy of myself. I am, Your, etc.

LETTER XV.

TO MR. ADDISON.

January 30, 1713-14.

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YOUR letter found me very busy in my grand undertaking, to which I must wholly give myself for some time, unless when I snatch an hour to please myself with a distant conversation with you and a few others, by writing. 'Tis no comfortable prospect to be reflecting that so long a siege as that of Troy lies upon my hands, and the campaign above half over, before I have made any progress. Indeed the Greek fortification, upon a nearer approach, does not appear so formidable as it did, and I am almost apt to flatter myself, that Homer secretly seems inclined to a correspondence with me, in letting me into a good part of his intentions. There are, indeed, a sort of underling auxiliars to the difficulty of a work, called commentators and critics, who would frighten many people by their number and bulk, and perplex our progress under pretence of fortifying their author. These lie very low in the trenches and ditches they themselves have digged, encompassed with dirt of their own heaping up; but, I think, there may be found a method of coming at the main works by a more speedy and gallant way than by mining under ground, that is, by using the poetical engines, wings, and flying over their heads.

While I am engaged in the fight, I find you are concerned how I shall be paid, and are solicitous that