which nothing but impossibilities shall prevent me from receiving, since I am, with the greatest reason, truth, and respect, My Lord,

MADAM,

Your Grace's most obedient, etc.

I HAVE Consulted all the learned in occult sciences of my acquaintance, and have sate up eleven nights to discover the meaning of those two hieroglyphical lines in your Grace's hand at the bottom of the last Aimsbury letter, but all in vain. Only 'tis agreed, that the language is Coptic, and a very profound Behmist assures me, the style is poetic, containing an invitation from a very great person of the female sex to a strange kind of a man whom she never saw; and this is all I can find, which, after so many former invitations, will ever confirm me in that respect, wherewith I am,

Madam,

Your Grace's most obedient, etc.

LETTER LVII.

MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT.

December 1, 1731

YOU used to complain that Mr. Pope and I would not let you speak: you may now be even with me, and take it out in writing. If you don't send to me now and then, the post-office will think me of no consequence, for I have no correspondent but you. You may keep as far from us as you please, you cannot be forgotten by those who ever knew you, and therefore please me by sometimes shewing that I am not forgot by you. I have nothing to take me off from my friendship to you: I seek no new acquaint

tance, and court no favour; I spend no shillings in coaches or chairs to levees or great visits, and, as I don't want the assistance of some that I formerly conversed with, I will not so much as seem to seek to be a dependant. dependant. As to my studies, I have not been entirely idle, though I cannot say that I have yet perfected any thing. What I have done is something in the way of those fables I have already published. All the money I get is by saving, so that by habit there may be some hopes (if I grow richer) of my becoming a miser. All misers have their excuses; the motive to my parsimony is independence. If Í were to be represented by the Duchess (she is such a downright niggard for me), this character might not be allowed me; but I really think I am covetous enough for any who lives at the court-end of the town, and who is as poor as myself: for I don't pretend that I am equally saving with Sk. Mr. Lewis desired you might be told that he hath five pounds of yours in his hands, which he fancies you may have forgot, for he will hardly allow that a verseman can have a just knowledge of his own affairs. When you got rid of your lawsuit, I was in hopes that you had got your own, and was free from every vexation of the law; but Mr. Pope tells me you are not entirely out of your perplexity, though you have the security now in your own possession; but still your case is not so bad as Captain Gulliver's, who was ruined by having a decree for him with costs. have had an injunction for me against pirating booksellers, which I am sure to get nothing by, and will, I fear, in the end drain me of some money. When I began this prosecution, I fancied there would be some end of it; but the law still goes on, and 'tis probable I shall some time or other see an attorney's bill as long as the book. Poor Duke Disney is dead, and hath

"The second part of his Fables.

I

left what he had among his friends, among whom are Lord Bolingbroke, 500l. Mr. Pelham, 500l. Sir William Wyndham's youngest son, 500l. Gen. Hill, 500l, Lord Massam's son, 500l.

You have the good wishes of those I converse with; they know they gratify me, when they remember you; but I really think they do it purely for your own sake. I am satisfied with the love and friendship of good men, and envy not the demerits of those who are most conspicuously distinguished. Therefore, as I set a just value upon your friendship, you cannot please me more than letting me now and then know that you remember me (the only satisfaction of distant friends!)

P.S. Mr. Gay's is a good letter, mine will be a very dull one; and yet what you will think the worst

of it, is what should be its excuse, that I write in a head-ach that has lasted three days. I am never ill but I think of your ailments, and repine that they mutu ally hinder our being together: though in one point I am apt to differ from you, for you shun your friends when you are in those circumstances, and I desire them; your way is the more generous, mine the more tender. Lady 。 took your letter very kindly, for I had prepared her to expect no answer under a twelve-month; but kindness perhaps is a word not applicable to courtiers. However she is an extraordinary woman there, who will do you common justice. For God's sake why all this scruple about Lord B's keeping your horses, who has a park; or about my keeping you on a pint of wine a day? We are infinitely richer than you imagine; John Gay shall help me to entertain you, though you come like King Lear with fifty knights. Though such prospects as I wish, cannot now be formed for fixing you with us, time may provide better before you part P Bolingbroke.

• Howard.

exercise; and, to increase my misery, the knaves are sure to find me at home, and make huge void spaces in my cellars. I congratulate with you, for losing your great acquaintance; in such a case, philosophy teaches that we must submit, and be content with

good ones. I like Lord Cornbury's refusing his pension, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed; and entirely devoted to new principles; so it appeared to me the two last times I was there.

I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and volatile as ever, just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who hath always loved a domestic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive any one system of life that would please you. You pre

tend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchess, yet, from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent desire of perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting? while I, who am so much later in life, can, or at least could, ride 500 miles on a trotting horse. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do: as well to keep up the vogue you have in the world, as to make you easy in your fortune : you are merciful to every thing but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity. Be assured, I will hire people to watch all your motions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you at Aimsbury write domestic libels

to divert the family and neighbouring squires for five miles round? or venture so far on horseback, without apprehending a stumble at every step? can you set the footmen a laughing as they wait at dinner? and do the Duchess's women admire your wit? in what esteem are you with the vicar of the parish? can you play with him at back-gammon? have the farmers found out that you cannot distinguish rye from barley, or an oak from a crab-tree? You are sensible that I know the full extent of your country skill is in fishing for roaches, or gudgeons at the highest.

I love to do you good offices with your friends, and therefore desire you will shew this letter to the Duchess, to improve her Grace's good opinion of your qualifications, and convince her how useful you are like to be in the family. Her Grace shall have the honour of my correspondence again when she goes to Aimsbury. Hear a piece of Irish news, I buried the famous General Meredith's father last night in my cathedral; he was ninety-six years old: so that Mrs. Pope may live seven years longer. You saw Mr. Pope in health; pray is he generally more healthy than when I was amongst you? I would know how your own health is, and how much wine you drink in a day? My stint in company is a pint at noon, and half as much at night, but I often dine at home like a hermit, and then I drink little or none at all. Yet I differ from you, for I would have society, if I could get what I like, people of middle understanding, and middle rank.

Adieu.