Get these precepts by heart, and observe them strictly; and, my life for yours, we shall see better times in the next century.

FROM MRS. PENDARVES.

London, April 22, 1736. SIR,-I am sorry you make use of so many good arguments for not coming to Bath. I was in hopes you might be prevailed with. And though one of my strongest reasons for wishing you there was the desire I had of seeing you, I assure you the consideration of your health took place of it. I have heard since I received the favour of your last letter that you have been much out of order. I believed we sympathized, for I was very ill with a feverish disorder and cough for a month, which obliged me to defer answering your letter till I came to town. I left the Bath last Sunday se'unight, very full and gay. I think Bath a more comfortable place to live in tnan London; all the entertainments of the place lie in a small compass, and you are at your liberty to partake of them, or let them alone, just as it suits your humour. This town is grown to such an enormous size, that above half the day must be spent in the streets, going from one place to another. I like it every year less and less. I was grieved at parting with Mrs. Barber. I left her pretty well. I had more pleasure in her conversation than from anything I met with at the Bath. My sister has found the good effect of your kind wishes. She is very much recovered, and in town with me at present; but leaves me in a fortnight to go to my mother.

C

When I went out of town last autumn the reigning : madness was Farinelli; I find it now turned on "Pasquin," a dramatic satire on the times. It has had almost as long a run as the "Beggars Opera;" but, in my opinion, not with equal merit, though it has humour. Monstrous preparations are making for the royal wedding. Pearl, gold and silver, em-broidered on gold and silver tissues. I am too poor and too dull to make one among the fine multitude. The newspapers say my lord Carteret's youngest daughter is to have the duke of Bedford.d I hear nothing of it from the family, but think it not unlikely. The duke of Marlborough and his grandmother are upon bad terms. The duke of Bedford, who has also been ill treated by her, has offered the duke of Marlborough to supply him with 10,0007. a-year if he will go to law and torment the old dowager. The duke of Chandos's marriage has made a great noise, and the poor duchess is often reproached with her being bred up in Bur-street, Wapping.e

Mrs. Donnellan, I am afraid, is so well treated in Ireland, that I must despair of seeing her here; and how or when I shall be able to come to her I cannot yet determine. She is so good to me in her letters as always to mention you.

I hope I shall hear from you soon; you owe me

These dramatic satires will be found contained in the

that pleasure for the concern I was under when I heard you were ill. I am, sir, your faithful and obliged humble servant, M. PENDARVES.

I beg my compliments to all friends that remember me, but particularly to Dr. Delany.

TO MR. POPE.

Dublin, April 22, 1736. My common illness is of that kind which utterly disqualifies me for all conversation; I mean my deafness; and indeed it is that only which discourages me from all thoughts of going to England: because I am never sure that it may not return in a week. If it were a good honest gout, I would catch an interval to take a voyage, and in a warm lodging get an easy chair, and be able to hear and roar among my friends.

As to what you say of your letters, since you have many years of life more than I, my resolution is to direct my executors to send you all your letters, well sealed and packeted, along with some legacies mentioned in my will, and leave them entirely to your disposal: those things are all tied up, indorsed, and locked in a cabinet, and I have not one servant who can properly be said to write or read; no mortal shall copy them, but you shall surely have them when I am

no more.

I have a little repined at my being hitherto slipped by you in your epistles; not from any other ambition than the title of a friend, and in that sense I expect you shall perform your promise, if your health, and leisure, and inclination will permit. I deny your losing on the side of poetry; I could reason against you a little from experience; you are, and will be some years to come, at the age when invention still keeps its ground, and judgment is at full maturity: but your subjects are much more difficult when confined to verse. I am amazed to see you exhaust the whole science of morality in so masterly a manner. Sir W. Temple said that the loss of friends was a tax upon long life; it need not be very long, since you have had so great a share; but I have not above one left; and in this country I have only a few general companions of good nature and middling understandings. How should I know Cheselden? On your side, men of fame start up and die before we here (at least I am a little comI) know anything of the matter. forted with what you say of lord Bolingbroke's genius still keeping up, and preparing to appear by effects worthy of the author and useful to the world. Common reports have made me very uneasy about your neighbour Mr. Pulteney. It is affirmed that he hath been very near death: I love him for being a patriot in most corrupted times, and highly esteem his excellent understanding. Nothing but the perverse nature of my disorders, as I have above described them, and which are absolute disqualifications for converse, could hinder me from waiting on you at Twickenham, and nursing you to Paris. In short, my ailments amount to a prohibition; although I am, as you describe yourself, what I must call well, yet I have no spirits left to ride out, which (excepting walking) was my only diversion. And I must expect to decline every month, like one who lives upon his principal sum, which must lessen every day; and indeed I am likewise literally almost in the same case, while everybody owes me, and nobody pays me. Instead of a young race of patriots on your side, which gives me some glimpse of joy, here we have the direct contrary; a race of young dunces and atheists, or old villains and monsters, whereof four-fifths are more wicked and

uniform with the present complete edition of Swift.

TO DR. SHERIDAN,a

April 24, 1736. I HAVE been very ill for these two months past with giddiness and deafness, which lasted me till about ten days ago, when I gradually recovered, but still am weak and indolent, not thinking anything worth my thoughts; and although (I forget what I am going to say, so it serves for nothing)-I am well enough to ride, yet I will not be at the pains. Your friend Mrs. Whiteway, who is upon all occasions so zealous to vindicate, is one whom I desire you to chide; for during my whole sickness she was perpetually plaguing and sponging on me; and though she would drink no wine herself, yet she increased the expense by making me force it down her throat. Some of your eight rules I follow, some I reject, some I cannot compass, I mean merry fellows. Mr. J. R― never fails; I did within two days past ring him such a peal in relation to you, that he must be the d-1 not to consider it; I will use him the same way if he comes tomorrow (which I do not doubt) for a pint of wine. I like your project of a satire on Fairbrother, who is an errant rascal in every circumstance.

"Every syllable that is worth reading in this letter you are to suppose I wrote: the dean only took the hints from me, but he has put them so ill together that I am forced to tell you this in my own justification. Had you been worth hanging, you would have come to town this vacation, and I would have shown you a poem on the Legion Club.' I do not doubt but that a certain person will pretend he wrote it, because there is a copy of it in his hand lying on his table; but do not mind that, for there are some people in the world will say anything. I wish you could give some account of poor Dr. Sheridan; I hear the reason he did not come to town this Easter is, that he waited to see a neighbour of his hanged.”

Whatever is said in this page by Goody Whiteway, I have not read, nor will read; but assure you, if it relates to me, it is all a lie; for she says you have taught her that art, and as the world goes, and she takes you for a wise man, she ought to follow your practice. To be serious, I am sorry you said so little of your own affairs and of your health; and when will you pay me any money? for, upon my conscience, you have half starved me.

"The plover-eggs were admirable, and the worsted for the dean's stockings so fine that not one knitter here can knit them."

We neither of us know what the other hath written; so one answer will serve if you write to us both, provided you justly give us both our share, and each of us will read our own part. Pray tell us how you breathe, and whether that disorder be better.

"If the dean should give you any hint about money, you need not mind him, for to my knowledge he borrowed 201. a month ago to keep himself alive."

I am sorry to tell you that poor Mrs. Whiteway is to be hanged on Tuesday next for stealing a piece of Indian silk out of Bradshaw's shop, and did not set the house on fire, as I advised her. I have written a very masterly poem on the "Legion Club;" which, if the printer should be condemned to be hanged for it, you will see in a threepenny book; for it is two hundred and forty lines. Mrs. Whiteway is to have half the profit and half the hanging.

"The drapier went this day to the Tholsel as a merchant, to sign a petition to the government against a The paragraphs in inverted commas ("") were written by Mrs. Whiteway.

own,

TO BISHOP HORT.

May 12, 1736. MY LORD,-I have two or three times begun a lettert your lordship, and as often laid it aside; until, by th unasked advice of some friends of yours, and of all E I resolved at last to tell you my thoughts up the affair of the poor printer who suffered so muc upon your lordship's account, confined to a dunga: among common thieves, and others with infection diseases, to the hazard of his life; beside the expense above 251., and beside the ignominy to be sent Newgate like a common malefactor.

His misfortunes do also very highly and personal, concern me. For, your lordship declaring your desir to have that paper looked for, he did at my reques search his shop, and unfortunately found it; a although he had absolutely refused before to print because my name as the author was fixed to it, whit was very legible,' notwithstanding there was a scratit through the words; yet at my desire he ventured print it. Neither did Faulkner ever name you as te anthor, although you sent the paper by a clergyme one of your dependants; but your friends were the oals persons who gave out the report of its having been yüc performance. I read your lordship's letter written t the printer, wherein you argue that he is in the dealings the adventurer, and must run the hazard gain or loss." Indeed, my lord, the case is otherwi He sells such papers to the running boys for farthing a-piece, and is a gainer by each less than half farthing; and it is seldom he sells above a hundred unless they be of such as only spread by giving offe and consequently endanger the printer both in loss money and liberty, as was the case of that very pap which, although it be written with spirit and hum yet, if it had not affected Bettesworth, would scar have cleared above a shilling to Faulkner: neit would he have done it at all but at my urgency, whic was the effect of your lordship's commands to m But as your lordship has since been universally know for the author, although never named by Faulkner me, so it is as generally known that you never ga him the least consideration for his losses, disgrace and dangers of his life. I have heard this, and m from every person of my acquaintance whom I see home or abroad; and particularly from one pers too high to name, who told me all the particulars; a I heartily wished, upon your account, that I cou have assured him that the poor man had received t least mark of your justice, or, if you please to call it s your generosity, which I would gladly inform th great person of before he leave us.

Now, my lord, as God, assisting your own god management of a very ample fortune, has made extremely rich, I may venture to say that the printe has a demand, in all conscience, justice, and honour to be fully refunded, both for his disgraces, his losses and the apparent danger of his life; and that my opinion ought to be of some weight, because I was innocent instrument, drawn in by your lordshj against Faulkner's will, to be an occasion of his su ferings. And if you shall please to recompense him. the manner that all people hope or desire, it will be u more in your purse than a drop in the bucket; and s soon as I shall be informed of it I shall immediatel write to that very great person, in such a manner s will be most to the advantage of your character, f· which I am sure he will rejoice, and so will all your friends, or, if you have any enemies, they will be put to silence.

Your lordship has too good an understanding to imagine that my principal regard in this affair is not to your reputation, although it be likewise mingled with pity to the innocent sufferer. And I hope you will consider that this case is not among those where it is a mark of maguanimity to despise the censure of the world; because all good men will differ from you, and impute your conduct only to a sparing temper, upon an occasion where common justice and humanity required a direct contrary proceeding.

I conclude with assuring your lordship again, that what I have written was chiefly for your lordship's credit and service: because I am, with great truth, your lordship's most, &c. JONATHAN SWIFT.

FROM DR. SHERIDAN TO DR. SWIFT AND MRS. WHITEWAY.

May 12, 1736.

DEAR SIR,-I send you an encomium upon Fowlbrother, enclosed, which I hope you will correct; and if the world should charge me with flattery, you will be so good as to explain the obligations I lie under to that great and good bookseller.

MADAM,-how the plague can you expect that I should answer two persons at once, except you should think I had two heads? but this is not the only giddiness you have been guilty of. However, I shall not let the dean know it.

SIR, I wonder you would trust Mrs. Whiteway to write anything in your letter. You have been always too generous in your confidence. Never was any gentleman so betrayed and abused. She said more of you thau I dare commit to this paper. MADAM, I have let the dean know all the kind things you said of him to me, and that he has not such a true friend in the world. I hope you will make him believe the same of me.

SIR, I wish you would banish her your house, and take my wife in her stead, who loves you dearly, and would take all proper care if any sickness should seize you. She would as infallibly take as much care of you as ever she did of me; and you know her to be a good-natured, cheerful, agreeable companion, and a very handy woman; whereas Mrs. Whiteway is a morose, disagreeable prater, and the most awkward devil about a sick person, and very ill-natured into the bargain.

MADAM, I believe it will not require any protestations to convince you that you have not a more sincere friend upon the earth than I am. The dean coufesses that he had some little dislikings to you (I fancy he hears some whispers against you), but I believe his share of this letter will set all matters right. I know he has too much honour to read your part of it; and therefore I may venture to speak my mind freely concerning him. Pray, between ourselves, is be not grown very positive of late? He used formerly to listen to his friends' advice, but now we may as well talk to a sea-storm. I could say more, only I fear this letter may miscarry.

SIR,-I beg that impertinent woman, who has unaccountably got your ear, may not interrupt you while you read the encomium, and while you give it a touch of your brush; for I fear the colours are not strong enough. Cannot you draw another picture of him? I wish you would; for he is a subject fit for the finest hand. What a glorious thing it would be to make him hang himself!

As to business, I have nothing to say about money yet awhile; but by the next post you shall have two scholars' notes, which will amount to about fourteen or

VOL. II.

fifteen pounds; and if Mr. can force himself to do me justice, it will put about 257. in your pocket. But then you must remark that you will put twenty of it out again, and send it to Mrs. I have nobody after that to gather for but you; and if money comes in as I expect, you may borrow from, sir, yours. My tenants are as poor as job, and as wicked as his wife, or the dogs would have given me some money before this. Mr. Jones swears he will not pay you the bond which I gave you, except you come down to receive it; for he thinks it but reasonable that you should honour Belturbet as well as Cavan. Mr. Coote would give three of his eyes to see you at Cootehill. All the country long for you. My green geese, &c., are grown too fat. I have twenty lambs, upon honour, as plump as puffins, and as delicate as ortolans. I eat one of them yesterday. A bull, a bull! hoh! I cry mercy. As I return from the county of Galway next vacation, I intend to make Dublin my way, in order beauty, and every inch of it walkable. I wish you all to conduct you hither. Our country is now in high happiness till I see you; and remain with all respect, your most obedient and very humble servant, THOMAS SHERIDAN.

TO DR. SHERIDAN.

We

Dublin, May 15, 1736. MRS. WHITEWAY and I were fretting, raging, storming, and fuming that you had not sent a letter since you got to your Caban (for the V consonant was anciently a B), I mean Cavan: but, however, we mingled pity, for we feared you had run away from school, and left the key under the door. We were much disappointed that the spring and beginning of summer had not introduced the muses, and that your now walkable roads had not roused your spirits. are here the happiest people in the universe; we have a year and a half before the club will meet to be revenged further on the clergy, who never offended them; and in England their parliament are following our steps, only with two or three steps for our one. It is well you have done with the church, but pray take care to get money, else in a year or two more they will forbid all Greek and Latin schools, as Popish and Jacobite. I took leave of the duke and duchess today. He has prevailed on us to make a promise to bestow upon England 25,000l. a-year for ever, by lowering the gold coin, against the petition of all the merchants, shopkeepers, &c., to a man. May his own estate be lowered the other forty parts, for we now lose by all gold two and a half per cent. He will be a better (that is to say a worse) man by 60,000l. than he was when he came over; and the nation better (that is to say worse) by above half a million; beside the worthy method he hath taken in a disposal of employments in church and state. Here is a cursed long libel running about in manuscript on the Legion Club; it is in verse, and the foolish town imputes it There were not above thirteen abused (as it is said) in the original; but others have added more, which I never saw, though I have once read the true What has Fowlbrother done to provoke you? I either never heard or have forgot your provocations; but he was a fellow I have never been able to endure. If it can be done, I will have it printed, and the title shall be," Upon a certain bookseller (or printer) in Utopia." Mrs. Whiteway will he here to-morrow, and she will answer your sincere, open-hearted letter very particularly; for which I will now leave room. adieu for one night.

66

to me.

one.

MRS. WHITEWAY HERE BEGINS.

So

"SIR,-I am most sincerely obliged to you for all the civil things you have said to me, and of me to the

dean. I found the good effects of them this day; when I waited on him he received me with great good humour, said something had happened since he saw me last that had convinced him of my merit; that he was sorry he had treated me with so little distinction, and that hereafter I should not be put upon the foot of an humble companion, but treated like a lady of wit, and learning, and fortune; that if he could prevail on Dr. Sheridan to part with his wife, he would make her his friend, his nurse, and the manager of his family. I approved entirely of his choice, and at the same time expressed my fears that it would be impossible for you to think of living without her; this is all that sticks with me. But considering the friendship you express to me for the dean, I hope you will be persuaded to consider his good rather than your own, and send her up immediately; or else it will put him to the expense of giving three shillings and fourpence for a wife; and he declares that the badness of pay of his tithes, since the reso lutions of the parliament of Ireland, puts this out of his power."

I could not guess why you were so angry at Fowlbrother, till Mrs. Whiteway, who you find is now with me, said it was for publishing some works of yours and mine like a rogue: which is so usual to their trade that I now am weary of being angry with it. I go on to desire that Mrs. Donaldson will let me know what I owe her, not in justice but generosity. If you could find wine and victuals, I could be glad to pass some part of the summer with you, if health would permit me; for I have some club enemies that would be glad to shoot me, and I do not love to be shot; it is a death I have a particular aversion to. But I shall henceforth walk with servants well armed, and have ordered them to kill my killers: however I would have them be the beginners. I will do what I can with Mr. Richardson, who (money excepted) is a very honest man. How is your breathing? As to myself, my life and health are not worth a groat. How shall we get wine to your cabin? I can spare some, and am preparing diaculum to save my skin as far as Cavan, and even to Belturbet. Pray God preserve you. I am, &c. JONATHAN SWIFT.

TO MR. BENJAMIN MOTTE.

As

Dublin, May 25, 1736. SIR,-I lately received a long letter from Mr. Faulkner, grievously complaining, upon several articles, of the ill treatment he hath met with from you, and of the many advantageous offers he hath made you, with none of which you thought fit to comply. I am not qualified to judge in the fact, having heard but one side; only one thing I know, that the cruel oppressions of this kingdom by England are not to be borne. You send what books you please hither, and the booksellers here can send nothing to you that is written here. this is absolute oppression, if I were a bookseller in this town I would use all the safe means to reprint London books, and run them to any town in England that I could, because, whoever offends not the laws of God or the country he lives in commits no sin. It was the fault of you and other booksellers, who printed anything supposed to be mine, that you did not agree with each other to print them together if you thought they would sell to any advantage. I believe I told you long ago that Mr. Faulkner came to me and told me his intention to print everything that my friends told him they thought to be mine, and that I was dis contented at it, but when he urged that some other

bookseller would do it, and that he would take the advice of my friends, and leave out what I pleased to order him, I said no more but that I was sorry it should be done here. But I am so incensed against the oppressions from England, and have so little regard to the laws they make, that I do, as a clergyman, encou rage the merchants both to export wool and woollen manufactures to any country in Europe or anywhere else; and conceal it from the custom-house officers as I would hide my purse from a highwayman, if he came to rob me on the road, although England hath made a law to the contrary; and so I would encourage our booksellers here to sell your authors' books printed here, and send them to all the towns in England, if I could do it with safety and profit; because (I repeat it) it is no offence against God or the laws of the country I live in. Mr. Faulkner hath dealt so fairly with me that I have a great opinion of his honesty, although I never dealt with him as a printer or a bookseller; but since my friends told me those things called mine would certainly be printed by some hedge bookseller, I was forced to be passive in the matter. I have some things which I shall leave my executors to publish after my decease, and have directed that they shall be printed in London. For, except small papers, and some treatises writ for the use of this kingdom, I always had those of any importance published in London, & you well know. For my own part, although I have no power anywhere, I will do the best offices I can to countenance Mr. Faulkner; for although I was not at all pleased to have that collection printed here, ye none of my friends advised me to be angry with him: although if they had been printed in London by you and your partners, perhaps I might have pretended to some little profit. Whoever may have the hazard or advantage of what I shall leave to be printed in London after my decease, I will leave no other copies of them here; but if Mr. Faulkner should get the first printed copy, and reprint it here, and send his copies to Eng land, I think he would do as right as you Londo booksellers who load us with yours. If I live but a few years, I believe I shall publish some things that think are important; but they shall be printed in London although Mr. Faulkner were my brother. I have been very tedious in telling you my thoughts on this matter, and so I remain, sir, your most humble servant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

FROM CHARLES FORD, ESQ.

London, June 3, 1736. DEAR SIR,-Though you have left off corresponding with me these two years and a half, I cannot leave you off yet; and I think this is the sixth letter I have sent you since I have heard one word of you from your own hand. My lord Oxford told me last winter that he had heard from you, and you were then well. Mr. Cæsar very lately told me the same. It is always the most welcome news that can come to me; but it would be a great addition to my pleasure to have it from yourself; and you know my sincere regard for you may in some measure claim it.

I have been engaged these five months in a most troublesome lawsuit with an Irish chairman. Those fellows swarm about St. James's, and will hardly allow you to walk half a street, or even in the Park, on the fairest day. This rascal rushed into the entry of a tavern to force me into his chair, ran his poles against me, and would not let me pass till I broke his head. He made a jest of it that night; but the next morning an Irish solicitor came, out of profound respect, to advise me to make the fellow amends; he told a dismal story of the surgeon and the bloody shirt, and spoke against his own interest merely to hinder me, whom he had never seen before, from being exposed. Neither