Lord Masham has just married his son. Mr. Lewis has just buried his wife. Lord Oxford wept over your letter in pure kindness. Mrs. B. sighs more for you, than for the loss of youth. She says she will be agreeable many years hence, for she has learned that secret from some receipts of your writing. Adieu.

FROM LORD CASTLE-DURROW.

SIR,

CASTLE-DURROW, JAN. 18, 1736-7.

I RECEIVED the honour of your letter with that pleasure which they have always given me. If I have deferred acknowledging longer than usual, I should not be at a loss to make an excuse, if I could be so vain as to imagine you required any. Virtue forbids us to continue in debt, and gratitude obliges us at least to own favours too large for us to pay; therefore I must write rather than reproach myself, and blush at having neglected it when I wait upon you; though you may retort, blushes should proceed rather from the pen than from

* These letters, that almost set us among the very persons who wrote them, create, with all their faults, a melancholy interest. We hear of their acquaintance, friends, pursuits, studies, as if we knew them; we see the we see the progress of years and infirmities, and follow them through the gradations from youth to age, from hope to disappointment; and partake of their feelings, their partialities, aversions, hopes, and sorrows, till all is dust and silence.

BOWLES.

silence;

silence; which pleads a modest diffidence, that often obtains pardon.

I am delighted with the sketch of your Imperium, and beg I may be presented to your first minister, sir Robert *. Your puddings I have been acquainted with these forty years; they are the best sweet thing I ever eat. The economy of your

table is delicious;

a little and perfectly good, is the greatest treat; and that elegance in sorting company puts me in mind of Corelli's orcastro †, in forming which he excelled mankind. In this respect no man ever judged worse than lord chancellor Middleton; his table the neatest served of any I have seen in Dublin, which to be sure was entirely owing to his lady. You really surprise me, when you say you know not where to get a dinner in the whole town. Dublin is famous for vanity this way; and I think the mistaken luxury of some of our grandees, and feasting those who come to laugh at us from the other side of the water, have done us as much prejudice as most of our follies. Not any lord lieutenant has done us more honour in magnificence, than our present viceroy. He is an old intimate of my

* A name he gave his housekeeper, Mrs. Brent. N.

+ His lordship probably uses this word for orchestre. Corelli, the famous Italian musician and composer, and director of the pope's choir at Rome, was eminent for his skill in forming and disposing the several musicians in a concert. B. He was so affected with the character and abilities of our famous Harry Purcell, that, as fame reports, he declared him to be the only thing in England worth seeing; and accordingly resolved on a journey hither, on purpose to visit him; and is said by some to have died on the road: others say that he died at Rome, about 1733. N.

↑ The duke of Dorset. H.

youth,

youth, and has always distinguished me with affection and friendship. I trust mine are no less sincere for him. I have joy in hearing his virtues celebrated. I wish that he had gratified you in your request. Those he has done most for, I dare affirm, love him least. It is pity there is any allay in so beneficent a temper; but if a friend can be viewed with an impartial eye, faults he has none; and if any failings, they are grafted in a pusillanimity, which sinks him into complaisance for men who neither love nor esteem him, and has prevented him buoying up against their impotent threats, in raising his friends. He is a most amiable man, has many good qualities, and wants but one more to make him really a great man.

If you have any commands to England for so insignificant a fellow as I am, pray prepare them against the beginning of next month. At my arrival in town, I shall send a message in form for audience; but I beg to see you in your private capacity, not in your princely authority; for, as both your ministry and senate are full, and that I cannot hope to be employed in either, I fear your revenue is too small to grant me a pension. And as I am not fit for business, perhaps you will not allow me a fit object for one, which charity only prompts you to bestow. Thus, without any view of your highness's favour, I am independent, and with sincere esteem,

Your most obedient humble servant,

CASTLE-DURROW.

!

TO LADY BETTY GERMAIN.

MADAM,

JAN. 29, 1736-7.

I OWE your ladyship the acknowledgment of a

letter I have long received, relating to a request I made to my lord duke. I now dismiss you, madam, for ever from your office of being a go-between upon any affair I might have with his grace. I will never more trouble him, either with my visits or application. His business in this kingdom is to make himself easy; his lessons are all prescribed him from court; and he is sure, at a very cheap rate, to have a majority of most corrupt slaves and ideots at his devotion. The happiness of this kingdom is of no more consequence to him, than it would be to the great mogul; while the very few honest or moderate men of the whig party, lament the choice he makes of persons for civil employments, or church prefer

ments.

I will now repeat, for the last time, that I never made him a request out of any views of my own; but entirely by consulting his own honour, and the desires of all good men, who were as loyal as his grace could wish, and had no other fault than that of modestly standing up for preserving some poor remainder in the constitution of church and state.

I had long experience, while I was in the world, of the difficulties that great men lay under, in the points of promises and employments; but a plain honest English farmer, when he invites his neighbours to a christening, if a friend happen to come late, will take care to lock up a piece for him in the cupboard.

Henceforth

Henceforth I shall only grieve silently, when I hear of employments disposed of to the discontent of his grace's best friends in this kingdom; and the rather, because I do not know a more agreeable person in conversation, one more easy, or of a better taste, with a greater variety of knowledge, than the duke of Dorset.

I am extremely afflicted to hear that your ladyship's want of health has driven you to the Bath ; the same cause has hindered me from sooner acknowledging your letter. But, I am at a time of life when I am to expect a great deal worse; for I have neither flesh nor spirits left; while you, madam, I hope, and believe, will enjoy many happy years, in employing those virtues which Heaven bestowed on you, for the delight of your friends, the comfort of the distressed, and the universal esteem of all who are wise and virtuous.

I desire to present my most humble service to my lady Suffolk, and your happy brother. I am, with the truest respect, madam, your, &c.

TO MR. POPE.

FEB. 9, 1736-7.

I CANNOT properly call you my best friend, because I have not another left who deserves the name, such a havock have time, death, exile, and oblivion made *. Perhaps you would have fewer

* All these letters of Swift are curious and interesting, as they give us an account of the gradual decay of his intellects and

temper,