me: they hale me a thousand ways, and I am not able to bear them. It is so, by Heaven: The love of Varina is of more tragical consequence than her cruelty. Would to God you had treated and scorned me from the beginning. It was your pity opened the first way to my misfortune; and now your love is finishing my ruin and it is so then. In one fortnight I must take eternal farewell of Varina; and (I wonder) will she weep at parting, a little to justify her poor pretences of some affection to me? and will my friends still continue reproaching me for the want of gallantry, and neglecting a close siege? How comes it that they all wish us married together, they knowing my circumstances and yours extremely well, and I am sure love you too much, if it be only for my sake, to wish you any thing that might cross your interest or your happiness? Surely, Varina, you have but a very mean opinion of the joys that accompany a true, honourable, unlimited love; yet either nature and our ancestors have highly deceived us, or else all other sublunary things are dross in comparison. Is it possible you can be yet insensible to the prospect of a rapture and delight so innocent and exalted? Trust me, Varina, Heaven has given us nothing else worth the loss of a thought. Ambition, high appearances, friends, and fortune, are all tasteless and insipid when they come in com petition; yet millions of such glorious minutes are we perpetually losing, for ever losing, irrecoverably losing, to gratify empty forms and wrong notions, and affected coldnesses and peevish humour. These are the unhappy incumbrances which we who are distinguished from the vulgar do fondly create to torment ourselves. The only felicity permitted to hu man life we clog with tedious circumstances and barbarous formality. By Heaven, Varina, you are more experienced, and have lèss virgin innocence than I. Would not your conduct make one think you were highly skilled in all the little politick methods of intrigue. Love, with the gall of too much discretion, is a thousand times worse than with none at all. It is a peculiar part of nature which art debauches, but cannot improve. We have all of us the seeds. of it implanted in ourselves, and they require no helps from courts or fortune to cultivate and improve them. To resist the violence of our inclinations in the beginning, is a train of selfdenial that may have some pretences to set up for a virtue: but when they are grounded at first upon reason, when they have taken firm root and grown up to a height, it is folly-folly as well as injustice, to withstand their dictates; for this passion has a property peculiar to itself, to be most commendable in its extremes; and it is as possible to err in the excess of piety as of love. These are the rules I have long followed with you, Varina; and had you pleased to imitate them, we should both have been infinitely happy. The little disguises, and affected contradictions of your sex, were all (to say the truth) infinitely beneath persons of your pride and mine; paltry maxims that they are, calculated for the rabble of humanity. O, Varina, how imagination leads me beyond myself and all my sorrows! It is sunk, and a thousand graves lie open!-No, madam, I will give you no more of my unhappy temper though I derive it all from you. Farewell, madam; and may love make you a you while forget your temper to do me justice. Only remember, that if still refuse to be mine, you will quickly lose him that has resolved to die as he has lived, All yours, JON. SWIFT. I have here sent you Mr. Fletcher's letter, wherein I hope I do not injure generosity or break trust, since the contents are purely my own concern. If you will pardon the ill hand and spelling, the reason well and proper. and sense of it will find you very FROM THE EARL OF BERKELEY*. CRANFORD, FRIDAY NIGHT, 1706-7. I HOPE you continue in the mind of coming hither to morrow; for upon my sincerity, which is more than most people's, I shall be heartily glad to see you as much as possible before you go to Ireland. Whether you are or are not for Cranford, I earnestly entreat you, if you have not done it already, that you would not fail of having your bookseller, enable the archbishop of York to give a book to the queen ; He had been envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the States General in 1689; and in 1699 and 1700 one of the lord justices of Ireland, where Dr. Swift had been his chaplain. This letter is endorsed by Dr. Swift " old earl of Berkeley, about 1706 or 1707." He died Sept. 24, 1710. + Swift's Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners. for for with Mr. Nelson*, I am entirely of opinion, that her majesty's reading of that book of the project for the increase of morality and piety, may be of very great use to that end. DEAR SIR, FROM MR. ADDISON. DUBLIN, JUNE 3, 1710. I AM just now come from Finglass, where I have been drinking your health, and talking of you, with one who loves and admires you better than any man in the world, except your humble servant. We both agree in a request, that you will set out for Dublin as soon as possible. To tell you truly, I find the place disagreeable, and cannot imagine why it should appear so now more than it did last year. know I look upon every thing that is like a compliment as a breach of friendship; and therefore shall only tell you, that I long to see you; without assuring you, that I love your company and value your conversation more than any man's, or that I am, with the most inviolable sincerity and esteem, Dear sir, Your most faithful, most humble, and most obedient servant, You J. ADDISON. Robert Nelson, esqr., the worthy and pious author of many ex rellent religious publications. FROM FROM MR. SECRETARY ST. JOHN. DEAR DOCTOR, NOV. 17, 1711. I ASK pardon for my mistake*, and I send you the right paper. I am, in sickness and in health, ever your faithful friend, and obedient servant, H. ST. JOHN. FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE, THURSDAY MORNING, TWO O'CLOCK, THOUGH I have not seen, yet I did not fail to write to lord treasurer. Non tua res agitur, dear Jonathan. It is the treasurer's cause; it is my cause; it is every man's cause, who is embarked on our bottom. Depend upon it, that I never will neglect any opportunity of showing that true esteem, that sincere affection, and honest friendship for you, which fill the breast of your faithful friend, BOLINGBROKE. *This alludes to the short letter, printed in vol. xi, p. 197. + This seems to relate to the promotion of Dr. Swift, in which lord Bolingbroke, in one of his letters, charges the lord treasurer with being extremely backward. See also Journal to Stella, April 7, 1713. Dr. Swift was made dean of St. Patrick's on the 23d of that month. ΤΟ |