LETTER LV. FROM DR. SWIFT TO MR. GAY. August 28, 1731. YOU and the Duchess use me very ill, for, I pro fess, I cannot distinguish the style or the handwriting of either. I think her Grace writes more like you than herself, and that you write more like her Grace than yourself. I would swear the beginning of your letter writ by the Duchess, though it is to pass for yours; because there is a cursed lie in it, that she is neither young nor healthy, and besides it perfectly resembles the part she owns. I will likewise swear, that what I must suppose is written by the Duchess, is your hand; and thus I am puzzled and perplexed between you, but I will go on in the innocency of my own heart. I am got eight miles from our famous metropolis, to a country parson's, to whom I lately gave a city-living, such as an English chaplain would leap at. I retired hither for the public good, having two great works in hand: one to reduce the whole politeness, wit, humour, and style of England into a short system, for the use of all persons of quality, and particularly the maids of honour. The other is of almost equal importance; I may call it the Whole Duty of Servants, in about twenty several stations, from the steward and waitingwoman down to the scullion and pantry-boy'.-I believe no mortal had ever such fair invitations, as to be happy in the best company of England; I wish I had liberty to print your letter with my own comments upon it. There was a fellow in Ireland, who Wagstaff's Dialogues of Polite Conversation. Directions to Servants in general, has been published since his death. from a shoe-boy grew to be several times one of the chief governors, wholly illiterate, and with hardly common sense: a Lord Lieutenant told the first King George, that he was the greatest subject he had in both kingdoms; and truly his character was gotten and preserved by his never appearing in England, which was the only wise thing he ever did, except purchasing sixteen thousand pounds a year. Why, you need not stare: it is easily applied: I must be absent, in order to preserve my credit with her Grace-Lo, here comes in the Duchess again (I know her by her dd's; but am a fool for discovering my art) to defend herself against my conjecture of what she said. Madam, I will imitate your Grace, and write to you upon the same line. I own it is a base unromantic spirit in me, to suspend the honour of waiting at your Grace's feet, till I can finish a paltry law-suit. It concerns indeed almost all my whole fortune; it is equal to half Mr. Pope's, and twothirds of Mr. Gay's, and about six weeks' rent of your Grace's. This cursed accident hath drilled away the whole summer. But, Madam, understand one thing, that I take all your ironical civilities in a literal sense, and whenever I have the honour to attend you, shall expect them to be literally performed: though perhaps I shall find it hard to prove your hand-writing in a court of justice; but that will not be much for your credit. How miserably hath your Grace been mistaken in thinking to avoid envy by running into exile, where it haunts you more than ever it did even at court? Non te civitas, non Regia domus in exilium miserunt, sed tu utrasque. So says Cicero, (as your Grace knows,) or so he might have said. I am told that the Craftsman in one of his papers is offended with the publisher of (I suppose) the last edition of the Dunciad; and I was asked whether you and Mr. Pope were as good friends to the new disgraced person m as formerly? This I knew nothing of, but suppose it was the consequence of some mistake. As to writing, I look on you just in the prime of life for it, the very season when judgment and invention draw together. But schemes are perfectly accidental; some will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful; and others the contrary and what you say, is past doubt, that every one can best find hints for himself: though it is possible that sometimes a friend may give you a lucky one just suited to your own imagination. But this is almost past with me: my invention and judgment are perpetually at fisty-cuffs, till they have quite disabled each other; and the merest trifles I ever wrote are serious philosophical lucubrations, in comparison to what I now busy myself about; as (to speak in the author's phrase) the world may one day see. LETTER LVI. September 10, 1731. IF your ramble was on horseback, I am glad of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between stage-coaches and friends coaches, for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. One clean shirt with two cravats, and as many handkerchiefs, make up your equipage; and as for a night-gown, it is clear from Homer, that Agamemnon rose without one. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under-ones, that may add another thousand pound to your stock: and then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelve-penny coaches too well, without considerm Bolingbroke. ing that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a-day. I find a greater longing than ever to come amongst you; and reason good, when I am teazed with Dukes and Duchesses for a visit, all my demands complied with, and all excuses cut off, You remember, "O happy Don Quixote! Queens held his horse, and Duchesses "pulled off his armour," or something to that pur. pose. He was a mean-spirited fellow; I can say ten times more; O happy, etc. such a Duchess was designed to attend him, and such a Duke invited him to command his palace. Nam istos reges cæteros memorare nolo, hominum mendicabula: go read your Plautus, and observe Strobilus vaporing after he had found the pot of gold.-I will have nothing to do with that lady: I have long hated her on your account, and the more, because you are so forgiving as not to hate her; however, she has good qualities enough to make her esteemed; but not one grain of feeling. I only wish she were a fool.-I have been several months writing near five hundred lines on a pleasant subject, only to tell what my friends and enemies will say on me after I am dead. I shall finish it soon, for I add two lines every week, and blot out four, and alter eight. I have brought in you and my other friends, as well as enemies and detractors. It is a great comfort to see how corruption and ill-conduct are instrumental in uniting virtuous persons and lovers of their country of all denominations: Whig and Tory, High and Lowchurch, as soon as they are left to think freely, all joining in opinion. If this be disaffection, pray God send me always among the disaffected; and I heartily wish you joy of your scurvy treatment at court, which hath given you leisure to cultivate both public and private virtue, neither of them likely to be soon met with within the walls of St. James's or West minister. But I must here dismiss you, that I may pay my acknowledgment to the Duke for the great honour he hath done me. MY LORD, But I COULD have sworn that my pride would be always able to preserve me from vanity; of which I have been in great danger to be guilty for some months past, first by the conduct of my Lady Duchess, and now by that of your Grace, which had like to finish the work; and I should have certainly gone about shewing my letters under the charge of secrecy to every blab of my acquaintance; if I could have the least hope of prevailing on any of them to believe that a man in so obscure a corner, quite thrown out of the present world, and within a few steps of the next, should receive such condescending invitations from two such persons to whom he is an utter stranger, and who know no more of him than what they have heard by the partial representations of a friend. in the mean time, I must desire your Grace not to flatter yourself, that I waited for your consent to accept the invitation. I must be ignorant indeed not to know, that the Duchess, ever since you met, hath been most politickly employed in increasing those forces, and sharpening those arms with which she subdued you at first, and to which, the braver and the wiser you grow, you will more and more submit. Thus I knew myself on the secure side, and it was a mere piece of good manners to insert that clause, of which you have taken the advantage. But as I cannot forbear informing your Grace, that the Duchess's great secret in her art of government, hath been to reduce both your wills into one; so I am content, in due observance to the forms of the world, to return my most humble thanks to your Grace for so great a favour as you are pleased to offer me, and |