but neither is she a Court-lady, Fortune is botla blind and deaf, and a Court - lady, but then he is a most damnable Party - woman, and will never make me easy, as you promife. It must be Riches, which anfwers all your defcription: I am glad fhe vifits you, but my voice is fo weak, that I doubt fhe will never hear me.

Mr. Lewis fent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who by living fo long out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general converfation. I am daily lofing friends, and neither feeking nor getting others. Oh if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Tra vels! But however he is not without fault: There is a paffage in Bede, highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that age, where after abundance of praises he overthrows them all, by lamenting that, alas! they kept Eafter at a wrong time of the year. So our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable.or useful; but alas, he hath a fort of flouch in his walk! I pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Chriftian, though not a Catholic.

I hear nothing of our Friend Gay, but I find the Court keeps him at hard meat. I advised him to come over here with a Lord Lieutenant. Philips writes little Flams (as Lord Leicester call'd thofe fort of verses) on Mifs Carteret. A Dublin Blackfmith, a great Poet, hath imitated his manner in a poem to the fame Mifs. Philips is a complainer, and on this occafion I told Lord Carteret, that Complainers never fucceed at Court, tho' Railers do.

Are you altogether a country gentleman? that I muft address to you out of London to the hazard of your lofing this precious letter, which I will now

conclude altho' fo much paper is left, I have an ill Name, and therefore fhall not subscribe it, but you will guess it comes from one who esteems and loves you about half as much as you deferve, I mean as he can.

I am in great concern, at what I am just told is in fome of the news - papers, that Lord Bolingbroke is much hurt by a fall in hunting. I am glad he has To much Youth and vigour left (of which he hath not been thrifty) but I wonder he has no more Difcretion.

I

LETTER XII.

Oct. 15, 1725.

Am wonderfully pleafed with the fuddennefs of your kind anfwer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends, in proportion as you draw nearer to them; and are getting into our Vortex. Here is One, who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of fhining) learned to be content, with returning to his first point, without the thought or ambition of fhining at all. Here is Another, who thinks one of the greatest glories of his Father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of feeing you again, than of reviewing a world every part of which he has long defpifs'd, but what is made up of a few men like yourself. He goes abroad again, and is more chearful than even health can make a man, for he has a good confcience into the bargain (which VOL. IX. D

is the moft Catholic of all remedies, tho' not the most Universal). I knew it would be a pleasure to you to hear this, and in truth that made me write fo foon to you.

I'm forry poor P. is not promoted in this age; for certainly if his reward be of the next, he is of 'all Poets the most miferable. I'm alfo forry for another reafon; if they don't promote him, they'll fpoil the conclufion of one of my Satires, where, having endeavoured to correct the Tafte of the Town in wit and criticism, I end thus,

But what avails to lay down rules for sense?
In's Reign these fruitless lines were writ,
When Ambrofe Philips was preferred for Wit!

Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs (and generally by Tories too). Because he had humour, he was fupposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift; in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the Devil. He puts his whole truft at Court in that Lady whom I described to you, and whom you take to be an allegorical creature of fancy: I wish the really were Riches for his fake; though as for yours, I question whether (if you knew her) you would change her for the other?

Lord Bolingbroke had not the leaft harm by his fall, I wish he had received no more by his other fall; Lord Oxford had none by his. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved Mind fince you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being: pauilo minus ab angelis. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after fo many varieties and changes, after

棒

To much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought

of the one, any more than a fingle atome of the other, remains juft the fame; I've fancy'd, I say, that we fhould meet like the righteous in the Millennium, quite in peace, divefted of all our former Paffions, fmiling at our paft follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the Juft in tranquillity. Bud I find you would rather be employed as an avenging Angel of wrath, to break your Vial of Indignation over the heads of the wretched creatures of this world; nay, would make thein Eat your Book, which you have made (I doubt not) as bitter a pill for them as poffible.

1

I won't tell you what defings I have in my head (befides writing a set of Maxims in oppofition to all Rochefoucault's principles i) till I see you here, face to face. Then you fhall have no reason to complain of me, for want of a generous disdain of this world, though I have not lost my Ears in yours and their fervice. Lord Oxford too (whom I have now the third time mentioned in this Letter, and he de'ferves to be always mentioned in every thing that is addrefs'd to you, or comes from you,) expects you: That ought to be enough to bring you hither; 'tis a better reason than if the Nation expected you. For I really enter as fully as you can defire, into your Principle of Love of Individuals: and I think the way to have a public spirit is first to have a private one; for who can believe (said a friend of mine) that any man can care for a hundred thousand people,

1) This was only faid as an oblique reproof of the horrid mifanthropy in the foregoing Letter; and which he fuppofed, might be chiefly occafioned by the Dean's fondnefs for Rochefoucault, whofe Maxims are founded on the principle of an univerfal selfishness in human nature,

who never cared for one? No ill-humoured man can ever be a Patriot, any more than a Friend.

I defigned to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is fo touch'd with the period in yours to me concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter. He too is bufy about a book, which I guess he will tell you of. So adieu - what remains worth telling you? Dean Berkley is well, and happy in the profecution of his Scheme. Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke in health, Duke Difny fo alfo; Sir William Wyndham better, Lord Bathurst well. These and fome others, preferve their ancient honour and ancient friendship. Thofe who do neither, if they were dd, what is it to a Proteftant priest, who has nothing to do with the dead? I answer for my own part as a Papist, I would not pray them out of Purgatory.

My name is as bad an one as yours, and hated by all bad Poets, from Hopkins and Sternhold to Gildon and Cibber. The first prayed against me with the Turk; and a modern Imitator of theirs (whom I leave you to find out) has added the Christian to 'em, with proper definitions of each in this manner,

The Pope's the Whore of Babylon,

The Turk he is a Few:

The Chriftian is an Infidel

That fitteth in a Pew.