passages, which appear to be patched and altered,* and the style of a different sort (unless I am much mistaken). Dr. Arbuthnot likes the Projectors least; others, you tell me, the Flying Island; some think it wrong to be so hard upon whole bodies or corporations, yet the general opinion is, that reflections on particular persons are most to be blamed so that in these cases, I think the best method is to let censure and opinion take their course. A bishop here said, that book was full of improbable lies, and, for his part, he hardly believed a word of it; and so much for Gulliver. Going to England is a very good thing, if it were not attended with an ugly circumstance of returning to Ireland. It is a shame you do not persuade your ministers to keep me on that side, if it were but by a court expedient of keeping me in prison for a plotter; but at the same time I must tell you, that such journeys very much shorten my life, for a month here is longer than six at Twickenham. How comes friend Gay to be so tedious? another man can publish fifty thousand lies sooner than he can fifty fables. *This was the fact, which is complained of and redressed in the Dublin edition of the Dean's works. Warburton. + See the introductory letter from Gulliver to his cousin Simkin. Sir W. Scott. Warburton. Because he understood it to be intended as a satire on the Royal Society. Probably also because he was sensible of the injustice of the satire upon mathematical and physical science. Sir W. Scott. I am just going to perform a very good office: it is to assist, with the archbishop, in degrading a parson who couples all our beggars, by which I shall make one happy man, and decide the great question of an indelible character in favour of the principles in fashion. This I hope you will represent to the ministry in my favour, as a point of merit; so farewell till I return. I am come back, and have deprived the parson, who by a law here is to be hanged the next couple he marries he declared to us that he resolved to be hanged, only desired that when he was to go to the gallows, the archbishop would take off his excommunication. Is not he a good catholic? and yet he is but a Scotchman. This is the only Irish event I ever troubled you with, and I think it deserves notice. Let me add, that if I were Gulliver's friend, I would desire all my acquaintance to give out that his copy was basely mangled, and abused, and added to, and blotted out by the printer; for so to me it seems, in the second volume particularly. Adieu. LETTER LXIII. DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE. December 5, 1726. I BELIEVE the hurt in your hand affects me more than it does yourself, and with reason, be cause I may probably be a greater loser by it.* What have accidents to do with those who are neither jockeys, nor fox hunters, nor bullies, nor drunkards? And yet a rascally groom shall gallop a foundered horse ten miles upon a causeway, and get home safe. I am very much pleased that you approve what was sent, because I remember to have heard a great man say, that nothing required more judgment than making a present; which when it is done to those of high rank, ought to be of something that is not readily got for money. You oblige me, and at the same time do me justice in what you observe as to Mr. P. Besides, it is too late in life for me to act otherwise, and therefore I follow a very easy road to virtue, and purchase it cheap. If you will give me leave to join us, is not your life and mine a state of power, and dependence a state of slavery? We care not three pence whether a prince or minister will see us or no: we are not afraid of having ill offices done us, nor are at the trouble of guarding our words for fear of giving offence. I do agree that riches are liberty, but then we are to put into the balance * Pope was accustomed to write his letters to Swift in imitation of print, in order that he might read them without difficulty. The present to the Princess of Wales of Irish stuff. Bowles. Mr. Pulteney. In his letter of the 16th November, Pope had gently and kindly remonstrated against the Dean's involving himself in a party warfare by too close an alliance with Pulteney. Sir W. Scott. how long our apprenticeship is to last in acquiring them. Since you have received the verses,* I most earnestly entreat you to burn those which you do not approve, and in those few where you may not dislike some parts, blot out the rest, and sometimes (though it be against the laziness of your nature) be so kind to make a few corrections, if the matter will bear them. I have some few of those things I call Thoughts, moral and diverting; if you please, I will send the best I can pick from them, to add to the new volume. I have reason to chuse the method you mention of mixing the several verses, and I hope thereby among the bad critics to be entitled to more merit than is my due. This moment I am so happy to have a letter from my Lord Peterborough, for which I entreat you will present him with my humble respects and thanks, though he all-to-be Gullivers me by very strong insinuations. Though you despise Riddles, I am strongly tempted to send a parcel to be printed by themselves, and make a ninepenny job for the bookseller. There are some of my own, wherein I exceed mankind, Mira Poemata! the most solemn that ever were seen; and some writ by others, admirable indeed, but far inferior to mine; but I will not praise myself. You approve * A just character of Swift's poetry, as well as his prose, is, that it "consists of proper words in proper places." Johnson said once to me, speaking of the simplicity of Swift's style, "The rogue never hazards a figure." Warton. that writer who laughs and makes others laugh; but why should I who hate the world, or you who do not love it, make it so happy? Therefore I resolve from henceforth to handle only serious subjects; nisi quid tu, docte Trebati, Dissentis. Yours, &c. LETTER LXIV. MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT. March 8, 1726-7. MR. Stopford will be the bearer of this letter, for whose acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you and I think the acquaintance of so valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the least obligations. Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleased with this joint volume, in which, methinks, we look like friends, side by side, serious and merry by turns, conversing interchangeably, and walking down hand in hand to posterity; not in the stiff forms of learned authors, flattering each other, and setting the rest of mankind at nought; but in a free, unimportant, natural, easy manner, diverting others just as we diverted ourselves. The third volume consists of Verses, but I would chuse to print none but such as have some peculiarity, and may be distinguished for ours, from other writers. There is no end of making books, Solomon said, and above all, of making |