be as destitute of the social comforts of life as I must when I lose my mother; or that ever you should lose your more useful acquaintance so utterly as to turn your thoughts to such a broken reed as I am, who could so ill supply your wants. I am extremely troubled at the returns of your deafness; you cannot be too particular in the accounts of your health to me; every thing you do or say in this kind obliges me, nay, delights me, to see the justice you do me in thinking me concerned in all your concerns; so that though the pleasantest thing you can tell me be that you are better or easier; next to that, it pleases me that you make me the person you would complain to.

As the obtaining the love of valuable men is the happiest end I know of this life, so the next felicity is to get rid of fools and scoundrels; which I cannot but own to you was one part of my design in falling upon these authors, whose incapacity is not greater than their insincerity, and of whom I have always found (if I may quote myself),

That each bad author is as bad a friend.

This poem will rid me of those insects.

Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite, Graii;

Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade.

I mean that my Iliad; and I call it Nescio quid, which is a degree of modesty; but, however, if it silence these fellows, it must be something greater than any Iliad in Christendom. Adieu.

* It did, in a little time, effectually silence them.

LETTER LII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

Dublin, May 10, 1728.

I HAVE with great pleasure shown the New England newspaper, with the two names Jonathan Gulliver, and I remember Mr. Fortescue sent you an account from the assizes of one Lemuel Gulliver who had a cause there, and lost it on his ill reputation of being a liar. These are not the only observations I have made upon odd strange accidents in trifles, which in things of great importance would have been matter for historians. Mr. Gay's opera hath been acted here twenty times; and my lord lieutenant tells me it is very well performed; he hath seen it often, and approves it much.

You give a most melancholy account of yourself, and which I do not approve. I reckon that a man, subject like us to bodily infirmities, should only occasionally converse with great people, notwithstanding all their good qualities, easinesses, and kindnesses. There is another race which I prefer before them, as beef and mutton for constant diet before partridges: I mean a middle kind both for understanding and fortune, who are perfectly easy, never impertinent, complying in every thing, ready to do a hundred little offices that you and I may often want, who dine and sit with me five times for once that I go to them, and whom I can tell without offence that I am other

wise engaged at present. This you cannot expect from any of those that either you or I, or both, are acquainted with on your side; who are only fit for our healthy seasons, and have much business of their own. God forbid I should condemn you to Ireland (Quanquam O!); and for England I despair; and indeed a change of affairs would come too late at my season of life, and might probably produce nothing on my behalf. You have kept Mrs. Pope longer, and have had her care beyond what from nature you could expect; not but her loss will be very sensible, whenever it shall happen. I say one thing, that both summers and winters are milder here than with you; all things for life in general better for a middling fortune : you will have an absolute command of your company, with whatever obsequiousness or freedom you may expect or allow. I have an elderly housekeeper, who hath been my W-lp-le above thirty years, whenever I lived in this kingdom. I have the command of one or tavo villas near this town: you have a warm apartment in this house, and two gardens for amusement. I have said enough, yet not half. Except absence from friends, I confess freely that I have no discontent at living here; besides what arises from a silly spirit of liberty, which, as it neither sours my drink, nor hurts my meat, nor spoils my stomach further than in imagination, so I resolve to throw it off.

You talk of this Dunciad; but I am impatient to have it volare per ora-there is now a vacancy for fame; the Beggar's Opera hath done its task, discedit uti conviva satur. Adien.

LETTER LIII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

Dublin, Feb. 13, 1728.

I LIVED very easily in the country; sir A. is a man of sense, and a scholar, has a good voice, and my lady a better; she is perfectly well-bred, and desirous to improve her understanding, which is very good, but cultivated too much like a fine lady. She was my pupil there, and severely chid when she read wrong; with that, and walking, and making twenty little amusing improvements, and writing family-verses of mirth by way of libels on my lady, my time past very well and in very great order; infinitely better than here, where I see no creature but my servants and my old Presbyterian housekeeper, denying myself to every body, till I shall recover my ears.

The account of another lord-lieutenant was only in a common newspaper, when I was in the country; and if it should have happened to be true, I would have desired to have had access to him, as the situation I am in requires. But this renews the grief for the death of our friend Mr. Congreve, whom I loved from my youth, and who surely, besides his other talents, was a very agreeable companion. He had the misfortune to squander away a very good constitution in his younger days: and I think a man of sense and merit like him, is bound in conscience to preserve his health for the

sake of his friends, as well as of himself. Upon his own account I could not much desire the continuance of his life, under so much pain, and so many infirmities. Years have not yet hardened me; and I have an addition of weight on my spirits since we lost him; though I saw him so seldom, and possibly, if he had lived on, should never have seen him more. I do not only wish, as you ask me, that I was unacquainted with any deserving person, but almost that I never had a friend. Here is an ingenuous good-humoured physician, a fine gentleman, an excellent scholar, easy in his fortunes, kind to every body, hath abundance of friends, entertains them often and liberally, they pass the evening with him at cards, with plenty of good meat and wine, eight or a dozen together; he loves them all, and they him. He has twenty of these at command; if one of them dies, it is no more than, poor Tom! he gets another, or takes up with the rest, and is no more moved than at the loss of his cat; he offends nobody, is easy with every body-Is not this the true happy man? I was describing him to my lady A-—, who knows him too; but she hates him mortally by my character, and will not drink his health: I would give half my fortune for the same temper, and yet I cannot say I love it, for I do not love my lord

who is much of the doctor's nature. I hear Mr. Gay's second Opera, which you mention, is forbid; and then he will be once more fit to be advised, and reject your advice. Adieu.