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John Barber seldom: but always find him proud of some letter from you. I did my best with him, in behalf of one of your friends, and spoke to Mr. Lyttelton for the other; who was more prompt to catch, than I to give fire, and flew to the prince that instant, who was as pleased to please me.

You ask me how I am at court. I keep my old walk, and deviate from it to no court. The prince shews me a distinction beyond any merit or pretence on my part; and I have received a present from him of some marble heads of poets for my library, and some urns for my garden. The ministerial writers rail at me; yet I have no quarrel with their masters, nor think it of weight enough to complain of them: I am very well with the courtiers I ever was, or would be acquainted with. At least they are civil to me; which is all I ask from courtiers, and all a wise man will expect from them. The Duchess of Marlborough makes great court to me; but I am too old for her, mind and body; yet I cultivate some young people's friendship, because they may be honest men: whereas the old ones experience too often proves not to be so; I having dropped ten where I have taken up one, and I hope to play the better with fewer in my hand. There is a Lord Cornbury,* a Lord Polwarth,† a Mr. Murray, and one or two more, with whom I would never fear to hold out against all the corruption of the world.

* Son of the Earl of Clarendon, before spoken of. Bowles. + Afterwards Earl of Marchmont.

The late Lord Chief Justice Mansfield.

Warton.

Warton.

You compliment me in vain upon retaining my poetical spirit; I am sinking fast into prose; and if I ever write more, it ought (at these years, and in these times) to be something, the matter of which will give a value to the work, not merely the manner.

Since my protest (for so I call my Dialogue* of 1738) I have written but ten lines, which I will send you. They are an insertion for the next new edition of the Dunciad, which generally is reprinted once in two years. In the second Canto, among the authors who dive in Fleet-ditch, immediately after Arnall, verse 300, add these:

Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack,
With each a sickly brother, at his back;†
Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood,
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Ask
ye their names? I could as soon disclose
The names of these blind puppies, as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe, her children gone,

Sits mother Osborne, stupified to stone;
And needful Paxton § tells the world with tears,
These are, ah! no; these were my Gazetteers.

Having nothing to tell you of my poetry, I come

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+ The Gazetteers were daily papers. They were printed on one side of a sheet, and the other side served for the paper of the next day.

Bowles.

Osborne was the assumed name of the publisher of the Ga

zetteer.

Bowles.

§ A solicitor, who procured and paid those writers. Mr. Pope's MS. note. The line is now changed:

And monumental brass this record bears,

These are, &c.

Warton.

to what is now my chief care, my health and amusement. The first is better, as to head-aches; worse as to weakness and nerves. The changes of weather affect me much; otherwise I want not spirits, except when indigestions prevail. The mornings are my life; in the evenings I am not dead indeed, but sleep, and am stupid enough. I love reading still, better than conversation: but my eyes fail, and at the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labour of the past day sufficient to weigh me down. So I hide myself in bed, as a bird in his nest, much about the same time, and rise and chirp the earlier in the morning. I often vary the scene (indeed at every friend's call) from London to Twickenham, or the contrary, to receive them, or be received by them.

Lord Bathurst is still my constant friend, and

yours; but his country-seat is now always in Gloucestershire, not in this neighbourhood. Mr. Pulteney has no country-seat; and in town I see him seldom; but he always asks after you. In the summer, I generally ramble for a month to Lord Cobham's, the Bath, or elsewhere. In all these rambles, my mind is full of you, and poor Gay, with whom I travelled so delightfully two summers. Why cannot I cross the sea? The unhappiest malady I have to complain of, the unhappiest accident of my whole life, is that weakness of the breast, which makes the physicians of opinion that a strong vomit would kill me. I have never taken one, nor had a natural motion that way in fifteen

years. I went, some years ago, with Lord Peterborough about ten leagues at sea, purely to try if I could sail without sea-sickness, and with no other view than to make yourself and Lord Bolingbroke a visit before I died. But the experiment, though almost all the way near the coast, had almost ended all my views at once. Well then, I must submit to live at the distance which fortune has set us at: but my memory, my affections, my esteem, are inseparable from you, and will, my dear friend, be for ever yours.*

P. S. This I end at Lord Orrery's, in company with Dr. King. Wherever I can find two or three that are yours, I adhere to them naturally, and by that title they become mine. I thank you for sending Mr. Swift to me. He can tell you more of me.

A SECOND POSTSCRIPT.

One of my new friends, Mr. Lyttelton, was to the last degree glad to have any request from you to make to his master. The moment I shewed him yours concerning Mr. M'Aulay, he went to him and it was granted. He is extremely obliged for the promotion of Lamb. I will make you no particular speeches from him; but you and he

* This letter from Pope to Swift, in which he enumerates their living friends, and commemorates so many of those they had lost, seems to have been intended by him as the winding up of the drama and the close of their long correspondence, which it accordingly proved to be.

have a mutual right to each other. Sint tales animæ concordes. He loves you, though he sees you not; as all posterity will love you, who will not see you, but reverence and admire you.

SIR,

LETTER CLXXI.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. LYTTELTON.

June 5, 1739.

You treat me very hard, by beginning your letter with owing an obligation to me on account of Mr. Lamb; which deserves mine and my chapter's, thanks, for recommending so useful a person to my choir. choir. It is true I gave Mr. Deane Swift a letter to my dear friend Mr. Pope, that he might have the happiness to see and know so great a genius in poetry, and so agreeable in all other good qualities; but the young man (several years older than you) was much surprized to see his junior in so high a station as secretary to his royal highness the Prince of Wales, and to find himself treated by you in so kind a manner. In one article you are greatly mistaken: for however ignorant we may be in the affairs of England, your character is as well known among us, in every particular, as it is in the prince your master's court, and indeed all over this poor kingdom.

You will find that I have not altogether forgotten my old court politics: for, in a letter I writ to

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