I used to be going to bed, furfeited with pleasure, or jaded with bufinefs: my head often full of schemes, and my heart as often full of anxiety. Is it a misfortune, think you, that I rife at this hour, refrefhed, ferene, and calm? that the paft, and even the prefent affairs of life stand like objects at a distance from me. where I can keep off the dif agreeable fo as not to be ftrongly affected by them, and from whence I can draw the others nearer to me? Paffions in their force, would bring all these, nay even future contingencies, about my ears at once, and Reason would but ill defend me in the fcuffle. I leave Pope to fpeak for himself, but I muft tell you how much my wife is obliged to you. She fays, the would find ftrength enough to nurfe you, if you was here, and yet, God knows, fhe is extremely weak: The flow fever works under, and mines the conftitution; we keep it off fometimes, but ftill it returns, and makes new breaches before nature can repair the old ones. I am not afhamed to fay to you, that I admire her more every hour of my life Death is not to her the King of Terrors; she beholds him without the leaft. When fhe fuffers much, fhe wishes for him as a deliverer from pain; when life is tolerable, fhe looks on him with diflike, because he is to feparate her from thofe friends to whom fhe is more attached than to life itself.-You shall not ftay for my next, as long as you have for this letter; and in every one, Pope fhall write fomething much better than the fcraps of old Philofophers, which were the prefents, Munufcula, that Stoical Fop Seneca used to fend in every Epiftle to his friend Lucilius. P. S. My Lord has spoken juftly of his Lady: why not I of my Mother? Yefterday was her birth-day, now entering on the ninety-firft year of her age; her memory much diminish'd, but her fenfes very little hurt, her fight and hearing good; the fleeps not ill, eats moderately, drinks water, fays her prayers; this is all fhe does. I have reafon to thank God for continuing fo long to me a very good and tender parent, and for allowing me to exercife for fome years, thofe cares which are now as neceffary to her, as hers have been to me. An object of this fort daily before one's eyes very much foftens the mind, but perhaps may hinder it from the willingness of contracting other tyes of the like domeftic nature, when one finds how painful it is even to enjoy the tender pleafures. I have formerly made fome frong efforts to get and to deserve a friend: perhaps perhaps it were wifer never to attempt it, but live extempore, and look upon the world only as a place to pafs thro', juft pay your hofts their due, difperfe a little charity, and hurry on. Yet I am just now writing (or rather planning) a book, to make mankind look upon this life with comfort and pleasure, and put morality in good humour.-And just now too, I am going to fee one I love very tenderly; and to-morrow to entertain feveral civil people, whom if we call friends,, it is by the Courtesy of England.-Sic, fic juvat ire fub umbras. While we do live, we must make the best of life, Cantantes licet ufque (minus via laedet) eamus, as the fhepherd faid in Virgil, when the road was long and heavy. I am yours. LETTER XLVIII. Lord BOLINGBROKE to Dr. SWIFT. You may affure yourself, that if you come over this fpring, you will find me not only got back into the habits of study, but devoted to that hiftorical task, which you have fet me thefe many years. I am in hopes of fome materials which will enable me to work in the whole extent of the plan I propofe to myfelf. If they are not to be had, I must accommodate my plan to this deficiency. In the mean time Pope has given me more trouble than he or I thought of; and you will be furprized to find that I have been partly drawn by him, and partly by myself, to write a pretty large volume upon a very grave and very important fubject; that I have ventur'd to pay no regard whatever to any authority except facred authority, and that I have ventured to ftart a thought, which muft, if it is pufh'd as fuccessfully as I think it is, render all your Metaphyfical Theology both ridiculous and abominable. There is an expreffion in one of your letters to me, which makes me believe you will come into my way of thinking on this fubject; and yet I am perfuaded that Divines and Freethinkers would both be clamorous against it, if it was to be fubmitted to their cenfure, as I do not intend that it fhall. The paffage I mean, is that where you fay that you U u 2 told told Dr. the Grand points of Chriftianity ought to be taken as infallible Revelations *. etc. It has happened, that, whilft I was writing this to you, the Dr. came to make me a vifit from London, where I heard he was arrived fome time ago: He was in hafte to return, and is, I perceive, in great hafte to print. He left with me eight Differtations +, a fmall part, as I understand, of his work, and defired me to perufe, confider, and obferve upon them againft Monday next, when he will come down again. By what I have read of the two firft, I find myfelf unable to ferve him. The principles he reafons upon are begged in a disputation of this fort, and the manner of reafoning is by no means clofe and conclufive. The fole advice I could give him in confcience would be that which he would take ill, and not follow. I will get rid of this talk as well as I can, for I efteem, the man, and fhould be forry to difoblige him where I cannot serve him. As to retirement, and exercife, your notions are true : The firft fhould not be indulged fo much as to render us favage, nor the laft neglected fo as to impair health. But I know men, who for fear of being favage, live with all who will live with them; and who, to preserve their health, faunter away half their time. Adieu. Pope calls for the paper. P. S. I hope what goes before will be a ftrong motive to your coming. God knows if ever I fhall fee Ireland; 1 fhall never defire it, if you can be got hither, or kept here. Yet I think I fhall be, too foon, a Freeman.Your recommendations I conftantly give to those you mention; tho' fome of them I fee but feldom, and am every day more retired. I am lefs fond of the world, and lefs curious about it: yet no way out of humour, difappointed, or angry: tho' in my way I receive as many injuries as my betters, but I don't feel them, therefore I ought not to vex other people, nor even to return injuries, I pafs almoft all my time at Dawley and at home; my Lord (of which I partly take the merit to myfelf) is as much eftranged from politics as 1 am. Let Philofophy be ever fo vain, it is lefs vain now than Politics, and not quite fo vain at prefent as Divinity; I know nothing that moves In this maxim all bigotted Divines and free-thinking Politicians agree; the one, for fear of difturbing the eftablifh'd Religion; the other, left that dif turbance fhould prove injurious to their adminiflration of government. Revelation examined with Candour, ftrongly ftrongly but Satire, and thofe who are afham'd of nothing elfe. are fo of being ridiculous. I fancy, if we three were together but for three years, fome good might be done this Age. even upon I know you'll defire fome account of my health: It is as ufual, but my fpirits rather worse. I write little or nothing. You know, I never had either a taste or talent for politics, and the world minds nothing elfe. I have perfonal obligations which I will ever preferve, to men of different fides, and I wifh nothing fo much as public quiet, except it be my own quiet. I think it a merit, if I can take off any man from grating or fatirical fubjects, merely on the score of Party: and it is the greateft vanity of my life that I've contributed to turn my Lord Bolingbroke to fubjects moral, useful, and more worthy his pen. Dr. -'s Book is what I can't commend fo much as Dean Berkley's, tho' it has many things ingenious in it, and is not deficient in the writing part: but the whole book, tho' he meant it ad Populum, is, I think, purely ad Clerum. Adieu, * Call'd The Minute Philofopher. LETTER LETTERS O F Dr. SWIFT to Mr. GAY, From the Year 1729 to 1732. LETTER XLIX. Dublin, March 19, 1729. Deny it. I do write to you according to the old ftipulation, for, when you kept your old company, when I writ to one I writ to all. But I am ready to enter into a new bargain fince you are got into a new world, and will answer all your letters. You are first to prefent my moft humble refpects to the Duchefs of Queenfberry, and let her know that I never dine without thinking of her, although it be with fome difficulty that I can obey her when I dine with forks that have but two prongs, and when the fauce is not very confiftent. You must likewife tell her Grace that she is a general toaft among all honeft folks here, and particularly at the Deanry, even in the face of my Whig fubjects.-I will leave my money in Lord Bathurft's hands, and the management of it (for want of better) in yours: and pray keep the intereft-money in a bag wrapt up and fealed by itself, for fear of your own fingers under your careleffnefs. Mr. Pope talks of you as a perfect ftranger; but the different purfuits and manners and interefts of life, as fortune has pleafed to difpofe them, will never fuffer thofe to live together, who by their inclinations ought never to part. I hope when you are rich enough, you will have fome little oeconomy of your own *Found among Mr. Gay's papers, and return'd to Dr. Swift by the Duke of Queensberry and Mr. Pope. |