or in writing, but not by word of mouth: They will give things under their hand which they make a confcience of speaking. Befides, they are too libertine to haunt antichambers, too poor to bribe Porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to fecond-hand favourites in a great family. Tell me, are you not under Original fin by the dedication of your Eclogues to Lord Bolingbroke? I am an ill Judge at this dif tance; and befides, am, for my ease, utterly ignorant of the commoneft things that pass in the world; but if all Courts have a famenefs in them (as the Parfons phrase it) things may be as they were in my time, when all employments went to Parliamentmens Friends, who had been useful in Elections, and there was always a huge Lift of names in arrears at the Treasury, which would at least take up your feven years expedient to discharge even one half. I am of opinion, if you will not be offended, that the fureft course would be to get your Friend who lodgeth in your house to recommend you to the next chief Governor who comes over here for a good civil employment, or to be one of his Secretaries, which your Parliament-men are fond enough of, when there is no room at home. The wine is good and reasonable; you may dine twice a week at the Deanryhoufe; there is a fett of company in this town fufficient for one man; folks will admire you, because they have read you, and read of you; and a good employment will make you live tolerably in London, or fumptuously here; or if you divide between both places, it will be for your health.

I wish I could do more than fay I love you. I left you in a good way both for the late Court, and the fucceffors; and by the force of too much honesty or too little fublunary wisdom, you fell between too, ftools. Take care of your health and money; be less VOL. IX. C

modeft and more active; or elfe turn Parfon and get a Bishoprick here: Would to God they would fend us as good ones from your fide!

I am ever, &c.

LETTER VII.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SwIFT.

Jan. 12, 1723.

Find a rebuke in a late Letter of yours, that both ftings and pleaseth me extremely. Your faying that I ought to have writ a Postscript to my friend Gay's, makes me not content to write lefs than a whole Letter; and your feeming to take his kindly, gives me hopes you will look upon this as a fincere effect of Friendship. Indeed as I cannot but own the Laziness with which you tax me, and with which I may equally charge you, for both of us have had (and one of us hath both had and given 1) a Surfeit of writing; fo I really thought you would know yourfelf to be fo certainly intitled to my Friendship, that it was a poffeffion you could not imagine ftood in need of any further Deeds or Writings to affure you of it.

Whatever you feem to think of your withdrawn and separate state at this distance, and in this Abfence, Dean Swift lives ftill in England, in every place and company where he would chufe to live, and I find him in all the Converfations I keep, and in all the Hearts in which I defire any fhare.

2) Alluding to his large work on Homer.

We have never met these many years without mention of you. Befides my old Acquaintance, I have found that all my friends of a later date are fuch as were yours before: Lord Oxford, Lord Harcourt, and Lord Harley may look upon me as one entailed upon them by you: Lord Bolingbroke is now returned (as I hope) to take Me with all his other Hereditary Rights: and, indeed, he seems grown fo' much a Philofopher, as to fet his heart upon fome of them as little, as upon the Poet you gave him. It is fure my ill fate, that all those I most loved, and with whom I most lived, must be banished: After both of you left England, my conftant Hoft was the Bishop of 2) Rochester. Sure this is a nation that is curfedly afraid of being over- run with too much Politeness, and cannot regain one great Genius, but at the expence of another 3). I tremble for my Lord Peterborow (whom I now lodge with) he has too much Wit, as well as Courage, to make a folid General 4) and if he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banifh himself. This leads me to give you fome account of the manner of my life and Con verfation, which has been infinitely more various

2) Dr. Atterbury.

3) The Bishop of Rochefter thought this to be indeed, the cafe; and that the price agreed on for Lord B's return was his banishment: an imagination, which fo ftrongly polfelled him when he went abroad, that all the expoftulations of his friends, could not convince him of the folly of it.

4) This Mr. Walth feriously thought to be the cafe, where, in a letter to Mr. Pope, he fays--"When we were in the "North, my Lord Wharton fhew'd me a letter he had re

ceived from a certain great General in Spain; (Lord "Peterb.) I told him, I would by all means have that Ge"neral recalled, and fet to writing here at home, for it

was impoffible that a man with fo much wit as he fhewed, "could be fit to command an army or do any other bu *finefs," Let. V. Sep. 9. 1706.

and diffipated, than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all Sexes, Parties, and Profeffions a Glut of Study and Retirement in the first part of my life caft me into this; and this, I begin to fee, will throw me again into Study and Retirement. The Civilities I have met with from oppofite Setts of people, have hinder'd me from being violent or four to any Party; but at the fame time the Obfervations and Experiences I cannot but have collected, have made me lefs fond of, and lefs furprized at any : I am therefore the more afflicted and the more angry at the Violences and Hardfhips I fee practifed by either. The merry Vein you knew me in, is funk into a Turn of Reflection, that has made the world pretty indifferent to me; and yet I have acquired a Quietness of mind which by fits improves into a certain degree of Chearfulness, enough to make me juft fo good humoured as to wish that world well. My Friendships are encreafed by new ones, yet no part of the warmth I felt for the old is diminished. Averfions I have none, but to Knaves (for Fools I have learned to bear with) and fuch I cannot be commonly civil to; for I think thofe men Knaves who converfe with them. The greatest Man in power of this fort fhall hardly make me bow to him, unless I had a personal obligation, and that I will take care not to have. The top pleasure of my, life is one. I learned from you both how to gain and how to use, the Freedom of Friendship with men much my Superiors. To have pleased great men, according to Horace, is a praife; but not to have flattered them and yet not have displeased them, is a greater. I have carefully avoided all Intercourfe with Poets and Scriblers, unless where by great chance I have found a modeft one. By these means I have had no quarrels with any perfonally; none

are next to

have been Enemies, but who were alfo Strangers to me; and as there is no great need of an Eclaircisment with fuch, whatever they writ or faid I never retaliated, not only never feeming to know, but often really never knowing, any thing of the matter. There are very few things that give me the Anxiety of a Wish; the strongest I have would be to pass my days with you, and a few fuch as you: But Fate has dispersed them all about the world; and I find to wifh it is as vain, as to wish to see the Millennium and the Kingdom of the Just upon earth,

If I have finned in my long filence, confider there is one to whom you yourself have been as great a finner. As foon as you fee his hand, you will learn to do me justice, and feel in your heart how long a man may be filent to those he truly loves and respects.

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I

LETTER VIII.

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT,

Am not so lazy as Pope, and therefore you must

not expect from me the fame indulgence to Lazinefs; in defending his own cause he pleads yours, and becomes your Advocate while he appeals to you as his Judge: You will do the fame on your part; and I, and the rest of your common Friends, fhall have great justice to expect from two fuch righteous Tribunals; You resemble perfectly the two Alehousekeepers in Holland, who were at the fame timė Burgomafters of the Town, and taxed one another's Bills alternately. I declare before - hand I will not tand to the award; my Title to your Friendship is good, and wants neither Deeds nor Writings to con