FROM MR. POPE. TWITENHAM, DEC. 19, 1734. I AM truly sorry for any complaint you have, and it is in regard to the weakness of your eyes that I write (as well as print) in folio. You will think (I know you will, for you have all the candour of a good understanding) that the thing which men of our age feel the most, is the friendship of our equals and that therefore whatever affects those who are stept a few years before us, cannot but sensibly affect us who are to follow. It troubles me to hear you complain of your memory, and if I am in any part of my constitution younger than you, it will be in my remembering every thing that has pleased me in you, longer than perhaps you will. The two summers* we passed together dwell always on my mind, like a vision which gave me a glimpse of a better life, and better company, than this world otherwise afforded. I am now an individual, upon whom no other depends; and may go where I will, if the wretched carcase I am an, nexed to did not hinder me. I rambled by very easy journeys this year to lord Bathurst, and lord Peterborow, who upon every occasion commemorate, love, and wish for you. I now pass my days between Dawley, London, and this place; not studious, nor idle: rather polishing old works, than hewing out new. I redeem now and then a paper that has been abandoned several years; and of this * 1726 and 1727, when the Dean was at Twickenham. BowLES. sort sort you will see one, which I inscribe to our old friend Arbuthnot, He Thus far I had written, and thinking to finish my letter the same evening, was prevented by company, and the next morning found myself in a fever, highly disordered, and so continued in bed for five days, and in my chamber till now; but so well recovered as to hope to go abroad to-morrow, even by the advice of Dr. Arbuthnot. He himself, poor man, is much broke, though not worse than for these two last months he has been. took extremely kind your letter*. I wish to God we could once meet again, before that separation, which yet I would be glad to believe shall re-unite us but he who made us, not for ours but his purposes, knows only whether it be for the better or the worse, that the affections of this life should, or should not continue into the other: and doubtless it is as it should be. Yet I am sure that while I am here, and the thing that I am, I shall be imperfect without the communication of such friends as you: you are to me like a limb lost, und buried in another country; though we seem quite divided, every accident makes me feel you were once a part of me. I always consider you so much as a friend, that I forget you are an author, perhaps too much; but it is as much as I would desire you would do to me. However if I could inspirit you to bestow correction upon those three treatises which you say are so near completed, I should think it a better work than any I can pretend to of my own. I am * In proportion as we become displeased with the world, we are the more attached to particular friends. Swift's life exemplifies this. BoWLES. almost almost at the end of my morals, as I have been long ago, of my wit; my system is a short one, and my circle narrow, Imagination has no limits, and that is a sphere in which you may move on to eternity; but where one is confined to truth (or to speak more like a human creature, to the appearances of truth) we soon find the shortness of our tether. Indeed by the help of a metaphysical chain of ideas, one may extend the circulation, go round and round for ever, without making any progress beyond the point to which Providence has pinned us; but this does not satisfy me, who would rather say a little to no purpose, than a great deal. Lord Bolingbroke is voluminous, but he is voluminous only to destroy volumes. I shall not live, I fear, to see that work printed; he is sa taken up still, (in spite of the monitory hint given in the first line of my Essay *) with particular men, that he neglects mankind, and is still a creature of this world, not of the universe: this world, which is a name we give to Europe, to England, to Ireland, to London, to Dublin, to the court, to the castle, and so diminishing, till it comes to our own affairs, and our own persons. When you write (either to him or to me, for we accept it all as one) rebuke him for it, as a divine if you like it, or as a badineur, if you think that more effectual. * Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things His lordship was, however, so much taken up with the lower and more paltry concerns of politicks, that he would at any period of life have relinquisherl all his sublime philosophy, all his hermit ideas of retirement, to have gained what was the constant object of his ambition, the direction of the affairs of Government. BowLES. What What,I write will show you that my head is yet weak. I had written to you by that gentleman from the Bath, but I did not know him, and every body that comes from Ireland pretends to be a friend of the Dean's. I am always glad to see any that are truly so, and therefore do not mistake any thing I said, so as to discourage your sending any such to me. Adieu, FROM DR. SHERIDAN. DEAR SIR, DEC. 25, 1734. MR. R. HAMILTON is glad the venison got safe to you; it was carried by a county Cavan man in the 75th year of his age, who went off on Wednesday morning, was back with us on Saturday night, in all 104 miles, He was much affronted that a young fellow was proposed for the expedition----There's a County Cavan man for you. As for myself, I am grown thirty years younger, by no other method, than eating, drinking, and breathing freely in this Elysium of the universe, Happy will it be for you (if I misjudge not, and very seldom I do, as you yourself can witness, who have known me above sixteen years, and I believe a little more, if my memory fails me not, as I have no reason to think it does; for I do not find it in the least impaired) to convey yourself into the finest apartment of our Elysium, I mean to Castle Hamilton, where you will find a most hearty welcome, and and all the delights this world can give----But you must take me along with you. Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to hear that your innocent subjects of the Kevin Bayl* escaped the gallows, in spite of Bettisworth and all his add hay rents-----If he were to make them a holiday, it should make one for me and my boys likewise. Sunday we had a very hard frost---Yesterday morning fair---The afternoon, all night, and this morning to ten, was rain---Now fair again, but lowering. We are just now going to dinner at captain Perrott's, where your health is never omitted, both as Dean and Drapier---I forgot to tell you that there is a drapier's club fixed in Cavan of about thirty good fighting fellows; from whence I remark you have the heart of Ireland. Vid. Grierson's new map.--There is another Cavan Bayl for you. I have no more to trouble you with, but my good wishes for your long health and happiness. I am, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant, THOMAS SHERIDAN. If you go out of town before I return, leave the key of your strong box with Jane, that I may put my money among yours. Dr. Swift used to call the people who lived in the liberty of St. Patrick's his subjects: and without dispute they would have fought up to their knees in blood for him. D. S.. + The right spelling of this name is Bettesworth, constantly pronounced as a word of two syllables, until some poems had come out against him, and then Mr. Bettesworth affected to pronounce it as three syllables, to which this spelling by Dr. Sheridan alludes. D. S. Dr. Swift's cookmaid. D, S, 1 |