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either ; but be the future as it will, I shall collect all the past in one fair quarto this winter, and send it you, where you will find frequent mention of yourself. I was glad you suffered your writings to be collected more completely than hitherto, in the volumes I daily expect from Ireland: I wished it had been in more pomp, but that will be done by others: yours are beauties, that can never be too finely drest, for they will ever be young. I have only one piece of mercy to beg of you; do not laugh at my gravity, but permit me to wear the beard of a philosopher, till I pull it off, and make a jest of it myself. "Tis just what my Lord B. is doing with metaphysics. hope, you will live to see, and stare at the learned figure he will make, on the same shelf with Locke and Malbranche.

You see how I talk to you (for this is not writing); if you like I should do so, why not tell me so? if it be the least pleasure to you, I will write once a week most gladly; but can you abstract the letters from the person who writes them, so far, as not to feel more vexation in the thought of our separation, and those misfortunes which occasion it, than satisfaction in the nothings he can express? If you can, really and from my heart, I cannot. I return again to melancholy. Pray, however, tell me, is it a satisfacton that will make it one to me; and we will think alike, as friends ought, and you shall hear from me punctually just when you will,

P.S. Our friend, who is just returned from a progress of three months, and is setting out in three days with me for the Bath, where he will stay till towards the middle of October, left this letter with me yesterday, and I cannot seal and dispatch it till I have scribbled the remainder of this full. page talks very pompously of my metaphysics, and places

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them in a very honourable station. It is true, I have writ six letters and an half to him on subjects of that kind, and I propose a letter and an half more, which would swell the whole up to a considerable volume. But he thinks me fonder of the name of an author than I am. When he and you, and one or two other friends have seen them, satis magnum Theatrum mihi estis, I shall not have the itch of making them more public. I know how little regard you pay to writings of this kind. But I imagine that if you can like any such, it must be those that strip metaphysics of all their bombast, keep within the sight of every wellconstituted eye, and never bewilder themselves, whilst they pretend to guide the reason of others. I writ to you a long letter some time ago, and sent it by the post. Did it come to your hands? or did the inspectors of private correspondence stop it, to revenge themselves of the ill said of them in it?

me ama.

Vale, et

LETTER LXXIII..

FROM DR. SWIFT.

Nov. 1, 1734.

I HAVE yours with my Lord B

'sf postscript

my two

of September 15: it was long on its way, and for some weeks after the date I was very ill with inveterate disorders, giddiness and deafness. The latter is pretty well off; but the other makes me totter towards evenings, and much dispirits me. But I continue to ride and walk, both of which, although they be no cures, are at least amusements. never imagine you to be either inconstant, or to want right notions of friendship, but I apprehend your want of health; and it hath been a frequent wonder Bolingbroke.

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to me how you have been able to entertain the world so long, so frequently, so happily, under so many bodily disorders. My Lord B. says, you have been three months rambling, which is the best thing you can possibly do in a summer season; and when the winter recals you, we will, for our own interests, leave you to your speculations. God be thanked I have done with every thing, and of every kind that requires writing, except now and then a letter, or like a true old man, scribbling trifles only fit for children or school-boys of the lowest class at best, which three or four of us read and laugh at to-day, and burn to-morrow. Yet, what is singular, I never am without some great work in view, enough to take up forty years of the most vigorous healthy man : although I am convinced that I shall never be able to finish three treatises that have lain by me several years, and want nothing but correction. My Lord B. said in his postscript, that you would go to Bath in three days we since heard that you were dangerously ill there, and that the news-mongers gave you over. But a gentleman of this kingdom, on his return from Bath, assured me he left you well, and so did some others whom I have forgot. I am sorry at my heart that you are pestered with people who come in my name, and I profess to you, it is without my knowledge. I am confident I shall hardly ever have occasion again to recommend, for my friends here are very few, and fixed to the freehold, from whence nothing but death will remove them. Surely I never doubted about your Essay on Man; and I would lay any odds, that I would never fail to discover you in six lines, unless you had a mind to write below or beside yourself on purpose. I confess I did never imagine you were so deep in morals, or that so many new and excellent rules could be produced so advantageously and agreeably in that science, from any one head. I confess in some places I was forced to read

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twice; I believe I told you before what the Duke of Dorset said to me on that occasion, How a judge here, who knows you, told him that on the first reading those Essays, he was much pleased, but found some lines a little dark: on the second, most of them cleared up, and his pleasure encreased: on the third, he had no doubt remained, and then he admired the whole. My Lord B 's attempt of reducing metaphysics to intelligible sense and usefulness, will be a glorious undertaking, and as I never knew him fail in any thing he attempted, if he had the sole management, so I am confident he will succeed in this. I desire will allow that I write to both at preyou sent, and so I shall while I live: it saves your money and my time; and he being your Genius, no matter to which it is addressed. I am happy that what you write is printed in large letters; otherwise, between the weakness of my eyes, and the thickness of my hearing, I should lose the greatest pleasure that is left me. Pray command my Lord Bto follow that example, if I live to read his metaphysics. Pray God bless you both. I had a melancholy account from the Doctors of his health. I will answer his letter as soon as I can. I am ever entirely yours.

you

LETTER LXXIV.

Twickenham, Dec. 19, 1734.

I AM truly sorry for any complaint you have, and it is in regard to the weakness of your eyes that I write (as well as print) in folio. You'll think (I know you will, for you have all the candour of a good understanding) that the thing which men of our age feel the most, is the friendship of our equals ; and that therefore whatever affects those who are stept

• Arbuthnot.

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a few years before us, cannot but sensibly affect us who are to follow. It troubles me to hear you com plain of your memory, and if I am in any part of my constitution younger than you, it will be in my remembering every thing that has pleased me in you, longer than perhaps you will. The two summers we passed together dwells always on my mind, like a vision which gave me a glimpse of a better life and better company than this world otherwise afforded. I am now an individual, upon whom no other depends; and may go where I will, if the wretched carcase I am annexed to did not hinder me. I rambled by very easy journies this year to Lord Bathurst and Lord Peterborow, who upon every occasion commemorate, love, and wish for you. I now pass my days between Dawley, London, and this place, not studious, nor idle, rather polishing old works than hewing out new. I redeem now and then a paper that hath been abandoned several years; and of this sort you'll soon see one, which I inscribe to our old friend Arbuthnot.

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Thus far I had written, and thinking to finish my letter the same evening, was prevented by company, and the next morning found myself in a fever highly disordered, and so continued in bed for five days; and in my chamber till now; but so well recovered as to hope to go abroad to-morrow, even by the advice of Dr. Arbuthnot. He himself, poor man, is much broke, though not worse than for these two last months he has been. He took extremely kind your letter. I wish to God we could once meet again, before that separation, which yet, I would be glad to believe, shall re-unite us: but He who made us, not for ours but his purposes, knows only whether it be for the better or the worse, that the affections of this

h 1726-27, when the Dean was at Twickenham.

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