is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and pulls out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with a coach: if if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after dinner, we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and, by going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for you, It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no more arguments to persuade you. And am, with the greatest truth, your most faithful and obedient humble servant,

THEO, CASHELL,

TO THE REV. MR. JOHN TOWERS,

PREBENDARY OF ST. PATRICK'S, AT POWERSCOurt,

I CANNOT imagine what business it is that so entirely employs you. I am sure it is not to gain money, but to spend it; perhaps it is to new cast and contrive your house and gardens at 400l. more expense. I am sorry it should cost you two pence to have an account of my health, which is not worth a penny; yet I struggle, and ride, and walk, and am temperate, and drink wine on purpose to delay, or make abortive, those schemes proposed for a successor; and if I were well, I would counterfeit myself sick, as Toby Matthews, archbishop of York, used to do when all the bishops were gaping to succeed him. It is one good sign that giddiness is peculiar to youth, and I find I grow giddier as I grow older, and, therefore, consequently. I grow younger. If you will remove six miles nearer, I shall be content to come and spunge upon you as poor as you are, for I cannot venture to be half a day's journey from Dublin, because there is no sufficient medium of flesh between my skin and my bones, particularly in the parts that lie upon the saddle. Therefore, be pleased to send me three dozen ounces of flesh before I attempt such an adventure, or get me a six mile inn between this town and your house. The cathedral organ and backside are painting and mending, by which I have saved a sermon; and, as the rogues of workmen go on, I may save another.

How,

How, a wonder, came young Acheson to be among you? I believe neither his father nor mother know any thing of him; his mother is at Grange with Mrs. Acheson, her mother, and, I hear, is very ill of her asthma and other disorders, got by cards, and laziness, and keeping ill hours. Ten thousand sackfuls of such knights and such sons are, in my mind, neither worth rearing nor preserving. I count upon it that the boy is good for nothing. I am, sir, with great truth, your obedient, humble servant, JON. SWIFT.

TO LADY BETTY GERMAIN.

MADAM,

JUNE 8, 1735.

I TROUBLE you sooner than usual, in acknowledging your letter of May 27th, because there are some passages in it that seem to require a quick answer. If I forget the date of mine, you must impute it to my ill head: and if I live two years longer, I shall first forget my own name, and last your ladyship's. I gave my lady Kerry an account of what you said in relation to her son, with which she is fully satisfied. I detest the house of lords, for their indulgence to such a profligate prostitute villain as Curll; but am at a loss how he could procure any letters written to Mr. Pope; although, by the vanity or indiscretion of correspondents, the rogue might have picked up some that went from him. Those letters have not yet been sent hither;

therefore

therefore I can form no judgment on them. When I was leaving England upon the queen's death, I burnt all the letters I could find, that I had received from ministers for several years before. But, as to the letters I receive from your ladyship, I neither ever did or ever will burn any of them, take it as you please: for I never burn a letter that is entertaining, and consequently will give me new pleasure when it is forgotten. It is true, I have kept some letters merely out of friendship, although they sometimes wanted true spelling and good sense, and some others whose writers are dead: for I live like a monk, and hate to forget my departed friends. Yet I am sometimes too nice; for I burnt all my lord ****'s letters, upon receiving one where he had used these words to me, "All I pretend to is a great deal of sincerity:" which, indeed, was the chief virtue he wanted. Of those from my lord Halifax, I burnt all but one; which I keep as a most admirable original of court promises and professions. I confess also that I have read some passages in many of your letters, to a friend, but without naming you, only "that the writer was a lady," which had such marks of good sense that often the hearers would not believe me. And yet I never had a letter of mine printed, nor of any others

to me.

Your ladyship very much surprises me with one passage in your letter, which however I do not in the least understand; where you say, You "have been honoured in print by amorous, satirical, and gallant letters," where there was no word but your bare name mentioned. I can assure you, this is to me altogether a riddle, and what I never heard

the

the least syllable of; and wish you would explain it. No, madam, I will never forgive your insolent niece, without a most humble submission under her own hands; which if she will not comply with, I shall draw up letters between us, and send them to Curll.

I will tell your ladyship a cause I have of complaint against the duke of Dorset. I have written to him about four times since he was lieutenant : and three of my letters were upon subjects that concerned him much more than it did any friend of mine, and not at all myself; but he was never pleased to return me an answer: which omission (for I disdain to call it contempt) I can account for only by some of the following reasons. He is either extremely busy in affairs of the highest importance; or he is a duke with a garter; or he is a lieutenant of Ireland; or he is of a very ancient noble extraction; or so obscure a man as I am is not worth his remembrance; or, like the duke of Chandos, he is an utter stranger to me: and it would grieve me to the soul to put them together upon any one article. The last letter I writ to his grace was upon an affair relating to one of the favourite party, and yet a very honest gentleman; which last circumstance, with submission to your ladyship, is what I seldom grant; and the matter desired was a trifle. The letter before that related to a request made him by a senior fellow of this university, upon which I was earnestly pressed to write by some considerable members of the same body, which it highly concerned, as well as his grace's honour; the demand being directly contrary to their statutes, and of the most pernicious consequence,