daughter of the Duke, said publicly in the drawingroom, "That I had put up that stone out of malice, to raise a quarrel between his majesty and the King of Prussia." This perhaps may be false, because it is absurd: for I thought it was a whiggish action to honour Duke Schomberg, who was so instrumental in the revolution, and was stadtholder of Prussia, and otherwise in the service of that electorate, which is now a kingdom. You will observe the letter sent me concluded, "Your majesty's loyal subject;" which is absolutely absurd; for we are only subjects to the king, and so is her majesty herself. I have had the happiness to be known to you above twenty years; and I appeal, whether you have known me to exceed the common indiscretions of mankind; or that, when I conceived myself to have been so very ill used by her majesty, whom I never attended but on her own commands, I should turn solicitor to her for Mrs. Barber? If the queen had not an inclination to think ill of me, she knows me too well to believe in her own heart that I should be such a coxcomb. I am pushed on by that unjust suspicion to give up so much of my just discretion, as to write next post to my Lady Suffolk on this occasion, and to desire she will show what I write to the queen; although I have as much reason to complain of her, as of her majesty, upon the score of her pride and negligence, which make her fitter to be an Irish lady than an English one. You told me, "she

complained that I did not write to her;" when I did, upon your advice, and a letter that required an answer, she wanted the civility to acquit herself. I shall not be less in the favour of God, or the esteem of my friends, for either of their majesties' hard thoughts, which they only take up from misrepresentations. The first time I saw the queen, I took occasion, upon the subject of Mr. Gay, to complain of that very treatment which innocent persons often receive from princes and great ministers, that they too easily receive bad impressions; and although they are demonstrably convinced that those impressions had no grounds, yet they will never shake them off. This I said upon Sir Robert Walpole's treatment of Mr. Gay about a libel; and the queen fell entirely in with me, yet now falls into the same error. As the letter† *

of accidents, and out of perfect commiseration, &c.

There seem to be

+ Here the paper is accidentally torn. wanting eight small quarto lines, which conclude with those few words on the back of the page which follow the asterisks.-H.

LETTER CXII.

LORD BOLINGBROKE TO DR. SWIFT.

August 2, 1731.

I AM indebted to you, my reverend Dean, for a letter of a very old date: the expectation of seeing you from week to week, which our friend Gay made me entertain, hindered me from writing to you a good while; and I have since deferred it by waiting an opportunity of sending my letter by a safe hand. That opportunity presents itself at last, and Mr. Echlin will put this letter into your hands. You will hear from him, and from others, of the general state of things in this country, into which I returned, and where I am confined for my sins. If I entertained the notion, which by the way I believe to be much older than popery, or even than Christianity, of making up an account with Heaven, and demanding the balance in bliss, or paying it by good works and sufferings of my own, and by the merits and sufferings of others, I should imagine that I had expiated all the faults of my life, one way or other, since my return into England. One of the circumstances of my situation, which has afflicted me most, and which af flicts me still so, is the absolute inutility I am of to those whom I should be the best pleased to serve. Success in serving my friends would make me amends for the want of it in disserving my

enemies. It is intolerable to want it in both, and yet both go together generally.

I have had two or three projects on foot for making such an establishment here as might tempt you to quit Ireland. One of them would have succeeded, and would have been agreeable in every respect, if engagements to my lady's kinsman (who did not, I suppose, deserve to be your clerk) had not prevented it. Another of them cannot take place, without the consent of those, who would rather have you a Dean in Ireland, than a parish priest in England; and who are glad to keep you, where your sincere friend,* my late Lord Oxford, sent you. A third was wholly in my power; but when I inquired exactly into the value, I found it less than I had believed; the distance from these parts was great; and beside all this, an unexpected and groundless dispute about the right of presentation (but still such a dispute as the law must determine) had arisen. You will please to believe, that I mention these things for no other reason than to shew you, how much those friends deserve you should make them a visit at least, who are so desirous to settle you among them. I hope their endeavours will not be always unsuccessful.

I received, some time ago, a letter from Dr. Delany; and very lately Mr. Pope sent me some sheets, which seem to contain the substance of two sermons of that gentleman's. The philosophia

*Ironical. Bolingbroke's hatred to Oxford breaks forth on all occasions.

Sir W. Scott.

prima is above my reach, and especially when it attempts to prove, that God has done, or does so and so, by attempting to prove, that doing so and so is essential to his attributes, or necessary to his design; and that the not doing so and so, would be inconsistent with the former, or repugnant to the latter. I content myself to contemplate what I am sure he has done, and to adore him for it in humble silence. I can demonstrate, that every cavil, which has been brought against the great system of the world, physical and moral, from the days of Democritus and Epicurus to this day, is absurd; but I dare not pronounce why things are made as they are, state the ends of infinite wisdom, and shew the proportion of the means.*

Dr. Delany, in his letter to me, mentioned some errors in the critical parts of learning, which he hoped he had corrected, by shewing the mistakes,

* Yet this appears to have been the attempt of Mr. Pope, in his "Essay on Man," in which he professes to have adopted Lord Bolingbroke's principles:

"Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend;"

and which Lord Bolingbroke, in a subsequent part of this letter, says, was undertaken at his instigation; approving, at the same time, of the first three books, which he had seen and considered. -H.

But see the subsequent passage in this letter, where Bolingbroke says that "Pope will not go deep into the argument, or carry it so far as he had hinted;" "that is," says his commentator, " will not reconcile the present unequal distribution to the divine justice." In other words, Pope would not adopt Lord Bolingbroke's idea that every thing was perfectly right in this world; and that therefore there was no occasion for a future state.