whose walls I have not been admitted this year and a half; but for what reason I know not. Mr. Pope is just this minute come in, but had not the good luck to find him: so that I cannot give you any satisfaction in the affair you writ last about. He designs to see him to-morrow; and if any thing can be done, he says you shall hear from him.

By the beginning of my letter you see how I decline in favour; but I look upon it as my particular distinction, that as soon as the court gains a man I lose him. It is a mortification I have been used to, so I bear it as a philosopher should.

The letter which you writ to me and the duke, I received; and Mr. Pope showed me that directed to him, which gave me more pleasure than all the letters you have writ since I saw you, as it gives me hopes of seeing you soon.

Were I to acquaint the duke and duchess of my writing, I know that they would have something to say to you, and perhaps would prevent my sending the letter this post, so I choose to say nothing about it. You are in great favour and esteem with all that love me, which is one great reason that I love and esteem them.

Whenever you will order me to turn your fortune into ready money, I will obey you; but I choose to leave it where it is till you want it, as it carries some interest; though it might be now sold to some advantage, and is liable to rises and falls with the other stocks. It may be higher as well as lower; so I will not dispose of it till I hear from

you. I am impatient to see you, so are all your friends. You have taken your resolution, and I shall henceforth expect every week an agreeable surprize. The bellman rings for the letter, so I can say no more.

LETTER CXVIII.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. GAY.

Dublin, May 4, 1732.

I AM now as lame as when you writ your letter, and almost as lame as your letter itself, for want of that limb from my Lady Duchess, which you promised, and without which I wonder how it could limp hither. I am not in a condition to make a true step even on Amesbury Downs, and I declare that a corporeal false step is worse than a political one; nay worse than a thousand political ones, for which I appeal to courts and ministers, who hobble on and prosper, without the sense of feeling. To talk of riding and walking is insulting me, for I can as soon fly as do either. It is your pride or laziness, more than chair-hire, that makes the town expensive. No honour is lost by walking in the dark; and in the day, you may beckon a blackguard boy under a gate, near your visiting place, (experto crede) save eleven pence, and get a half a crown's worth of health. The worst of my present misfortune is, that I eat and drink, and can digest neither for want of exercise; and, to in

crease my misery, the knaves are sure to find me at home, and make huge void spaces in my cellars. I congratulate with you, for losing your great acquaintance; in such a case, philosophy teaches that we must submit, and be content with good ones. I like Lord Cornbury's refusing his pension, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed, and entirely devoted to new principles; so it appeared to me the two last times I was there.

I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and volatile as ever, just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who hath always loved a domestic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive any one system of life that would please you. You pretend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchess, yet, from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent desire of perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting? while I, who am so much later in life, can, or at least could, ride five hundred miles on a trotting horse. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do: as well to keep up

the vogue you have in the world, as to make you easy in your fortune: you are merciful to every thing but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity. Be assured, I will hire people to watch all your motions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you át Amesbury write domestic libels to divert the family and neighbouring squires for five miles round? or venture so far on horseback, without apprehending a stumble at every step? can you set the footmen a laughing as they wait at dinner? and do the Duchess's women admire your wit? in what esteem are you with the vicar of the parish? can you play with him at back-gammon? have the farmers found out that you cannot distinguish rye from barley, or an oak from a crab tree? You are sensible that I know the full extent of your country skill is in fishing for roaches, or gudgeons at the highest.

I love to do you good offices with your friends, and therefore desire you will shew this letter to the Duchess, to improve her Grace's good opinion of your qualifications, and convince her how useful you are like to be in the family. Her Grace shall have the honour of my correspondence again when she goes to Amesbury. Hear a piece of Irish news, I buried the famous General Meredith's father last night in my cathedral; he was ninety-six years old: so that Mrs. Pope may live seven years longer. You saw Mr. Pope in health;

pray is he generally more healthy than when I was amongst you? I would know how your own health is, and how much wine you drink in a day? My stint in company is a pint at noon, and half as much at night, but I often dine at home like a hermit, and then I drink little or none at all. Yet I differ from you, for I would have society, if I could get what I like, people of middle understanding, and middle rank.

Adieu.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER CXIX.

MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT.

London, May 19, 1732.

TO-MORROW We set out for Amesbury, where I propose to follow your advice, of employing myself about some work against next winter. You seemed not to approve of my writing more fables. Those I am now writing, have a prefatory discourse before each of them, by way of epistle, and the morals of them mostly are of the political kind; which makes them run into a greater length than those I have already published. I have already finished fifteen or sixteen; four or five more would make a volume of the same size as the first. Though this is a kind of writing that appears very easy, I find it is the most difficult of any that I ever undertook. After I have invented one fable, and finished it, I despair of finding out another; but I have a moral or two more, which I wish to