complaints of my ill health and lowness of spirits, if they were not some excuse for my delay of writing even to you. It is perfectly right what you say of the indifference in common friends, whether we are sick or well, happy or miserable. The very maid servants in a family have the same notion: I have heard them often say, Oh, I am very sick, if any body cared for it! I am vexed when my visitors come with the compliment usual here, Mr. Dean, I hope you are very well. My popularity that you mention is wholly confined to the common people, who are more constant than those we miscall their betters. I walk the streets, and so do my lower friends, from whom, and from whom alone, I have a thousand hats and blessings upon old scores, which those we call the gentry have forgot. But I have not the love, or hardly the civility, of any one man in power or station; and I can boast that I neither visit or am acquainted with any lord, temporal or spiritual, in the whole kingdom; nor am able to do the least good office to the most deserving man, except what I can dispose of in my own cathedral upon a vacancy. What has sunk my spirits more than even years and sickness, is, reflecting on the most execrable corruptions that run through every branch of publick management. I heartily thank you for those lines translated, Singula de nobis anni*, &c. You have put them temper, and strength of mind and body; and fill us with many melancholy but useful reflections. We see the steps by which this great genius sunk into discontent, into peevishness, into ini dignity, into torpor, into insanity! DR. WARTon. "The circling years on human pleasures prey, in in a strong and admirable light; but however I am so partial, as to be more delighted with those which are to do me the greatest honour I shall ever receive from posterity, and will outweigh the malignity of ten thousand enemies. I never saw them before, by which it is plain that the letter you sent me miscarried.—I do not doubt that you have choice of new acquaintance*, and some of them may be deserving: for, youth is the season of virtue: corruptions grow with.. years, and I believe the oldest rogue in England is the greatest. You have years enough before you to watch whether these new acquaintance will keep their virtue when they leave you and go into the world; how long will their spirit of independency last against the temptations of future ministers, and future kings.-As to the new lord lieutenant, I never knew any of the family; so that I shall not be able to get any job done by him for any deserving friend. JON. SWIFT. SIR, TO MR. JOHN TEMPLE†. DUBLIN, FEB. 1736-7. THE letter which I had the favour to receive from you, I read to your cousin, Mrs. Dingley, who * His new acquaintance were, probably, Lyttelton, Murray, lord Cornbury, &c. BOWLES. ↑ John Temple, Esq, was the nephew, and his lady the granddaughter of sir William Temple, by his only son, who died young. Mr. Temple died at Moor park, in February 1752. N. lodges lodges in my neighbourhood. She was very well leased to hear of your welfare; but a little mortified that you did not mention or inquire after her. She is quite sunk with years and unwieldiness: as well as a very scanty support. I sometimes make her a small present, as my abilities can reach; for I do not find her nearest relations consider her in the least. : state of Jervas told me that your aunt's picture * is in sir Peter Lely's best manner, and the drapery all in the same hand. I shall think myself very well paid for it, if you will be so good as to order some mark of your favour to Mrs. Dingley. I do not mean a pension, but a small sum to put her for once out of debt and if I live any time, I shall see that she keeps herself clear of the world; for she is a woman of as much piety and discretion as I have known. I am sorry to have been so much a stranger to the your family. I know nothing of your lady or what children you have, or any other circumstances; neither do I find that Mr. Hatch can inform me in any one point. I very much approve of your keeping up your family house at Moor park. I have heard it is very much changed for the better, as well as the gardens. The tree on which I carved those words, factura nepotibus umbram, is one of those elms that stand in the hollow ground just before the house: but I suppose the letters are widened and grown shapeless by time. I know nothing more of your brother, than that he has an Irish title (I should be sorry to see you with such a feather) and that some reason or other * Picture of lady Giffard, sister of sir William Temple, N. + Swiftappion phen hdrew this post it of Lady Goffard to ill John Temple in G drew us into a correspondence, which was very rough. But I have forgot what was the quarrel.f This letter goes by my lord Castle-durrow *, who is a gentleman of very good sense and wit. I suspect, by taking his son with him, that he designs to see us no more. I desire to present my most humble service to your lady with hearty thanks of her remembrance of me. I am, sir, Your most humble faithful servant, SIR, JON. SWIFT. TO MR. PULTENEY. MARCH 7, 1736-7. I MUST begin by assuring you, that I did never intend to engage you in a settled correspondence with so useless a man as I here am; and still more so, by the daily increase of ill health and old age; and yet I confess that the high esteem I preserve for your publick and private virtues, urges me on to retain some little place in your memory, for the short time I may expect to live. That I no sooner acknowledged the honour of your ur letter is owing to your civility which might have compelled you to write, while you were engaged in defending the liberties of your country with more than an old Roman spirit: which has reached *Nephew to Mr. Temple; his father having married Mary, the fourth daughter of sir John Temple. N. † Henry, created viscount Ashbrook, Sept. 30, 1751. N. of The letter alluded to we this obscure enslaved kingdom, so far, as to have been the constant subject of discourse and of praise among the whole few of what unprostituted people here remain among us." I did not receive the letter you mentioned from Bath; and yet I have imagined, for some months past, that the meddlers of the'postoffices here and in London have grown weary of their curiosity, by finding the little satisfaction it gave them. I I agree heartily in your opinion of physicians; I have es→ teemed many of them as learned ingenious men ; but I never received the least benefit from their advice or prescriptions. And poor Dr. Arbuthnot was the only man of the faculty who seemed to understand my case; but could not remedy it. But to conquer five physicians, all eminent in their way, was a victory that Alexander and Cæsar could never pretend to. I desire that my prescription of living may be published (which you design to follow) for the benefit of mankind: which, however, I do not value a rush, nor the animal itself, as it now acts; neither will I ever value myself as a Philanthropus, because it is now a creature (taking a vast majority) that I hate more than a toad, a viper, a wasp, a stork, a fox, or any other that you will please to add. Since the date of your letter, we understand there is another duke to govern here. Mr. Stopford was with me last night; he is as well provided for, and to his own satisfaction, as any private clergyman. He engaged me to present his best respects and acknowledgments by you. Your modesty, in refușing to take a motto, goes too far. The sentence is FF VOL. XIII. not |