their demands seem very extravagant: but I had no other reason for doing so than the ample commission he had from the town of Colrane. I wish I knew your sentiments in this affair. I never saw the gentleman before; but the commission he had encouraged me so far, that I could not refuse him the letter. Although I was ill enough when I saw you, I am forty times worse at present, and am no more able to be your guest this summer than to travel to America. I have been this month so ill with a giddy head, and so very deaf, that I am not fit for human conversation: besides, my spirits are so low that I do not think any thing worth minding; and most of my friends, with very great justice, have forsaken me. I find you deal with Faulkner. I have read his Rollin's history. The translator did not want knowledge enough, but is a coxcomb by running into those cant words and phrases which have spoiled our language, and will spoil it more every day. Your presents are so numerous that I had almost forgot to thank you for the cheese; against which there can be no objection but that of too much rennet, for which I so often wish ill to te housewife. I am, sir, with true esteem, your most obedient humble servant,

JONATH. SWIFT.

ΤΟ

TO JOHN BARBER, ESQ., ALDERMAN OF LONDON, QUEEN SQUARE*.

DUBLIN,

DEAR MR. ALDERMAN,

MARCH 30, 1737.

You will read the character of the bearer, Mr. Lloyd, which he is to deliver to you, signed by the magistrates and chief inhabitants of Colrane. It seems your society has raised the rents of that town, and your lands adjoining, about three years ago, to four times the value of what they formerly paid; which is beyond all I have ever heard even among the most screwing landlords of this impoverished kingdom; and the consequence has already been, that many of your tenants in the said town and lands are preparing for their removal to the plantations in America; for the same reasons that are driving some thousands of families in the adjoining northern parts to the same plantations; I mean the oppression by landlords. My dear friend, you are to consider that no society can, or ought in prudence or justice, let their lands at so high a rate as a squire who lives upon his own estate, and is able to distrain in an hour's warning. All bodies corporate must give easy bargains, that they may depend upon receiving their rents, and thereby be ready to pay all the incident charges to which they are subject. Thus, bishops, deans and chapters, as well as other

* This letter, incorrectly copied in vol. XIII, p. 331, is here given from the original.

VOL. XVIII.

A A

corporations,

corporations, seldom or never let their lands ever so high as at half the value; and when they raise those rents which are scandalously low, it is ever by degrees. I have many instances of this conduct in my own practice, as well as in that of my chapter. Although my own lands, as dean, be let for four-fifths under their value, I have not raised them a sixth part in twenty-three years, and took very moderate fines. On the other side, I confess there is no reason why an honourable society should rent their estate for a trifle; and therefore I told Mr. Lloyd my opinion, that if you could be prevailed on just to double the old rent, and no more, I hoped the tenants might be able to live in a tolerable manner; for I am as much convinced as I can be of any thing human, that this wretched oppressed country must of necessity decline every year. If, by a miracle, things should mend, you may, in a future renewal, make a moderate increase of rent, but not by such leaps as you are now taking; for you ought to remember the fable of the hen, who laid every second day a golden egg; upon which her mistress killed her, to get the whole lump at once. I am told that one condition in your charter obliges you to plant a colony of English in those parts: if that be so, you are too wise to make it a colony of Irish beggars. Some ill consequences have already happened by your prodigious increase of the rent. Many of your old tenants have quitted their houses in Colrane; others are not able to repair their habitations, which are daily going to ruin, and many of those who live on your lands in the country, owe great arrears, which they will never be in a condition to pay.

I

would

would not have said thus much in an affair, and about persons to whom I am an utter stranger, if I had not been assured, by some whom I can trust, of the poor condition those people in and about Colrane have lain under, since that enormous increase of their rents.

The bearer, Mr. Lloyd, whom I never saw till yesterday, seems to be a gentleman of great truth and good sense; he has no interest in the case, for, although he lives at Colrane, his preferment is some miles farther; he is now going to visit his father, who lives near Wrexham, not far from Chester, and from thence, at the desire of your tenants in and near Colrane, he is content to go to London, and wait on you there with his credentials. If he has misrepresented this matter to me in any one particular, I shall never be his advocate again.

And now, my dear friend, I am forced to tell you, that my health is very much decayed, my deafness and giddiness are more frequent; spirits I have none left; my memory is almost gone. The publick corruptions in both kingdoms allow me no peace or quiet of mind. I sink every day, and am older by twenty years than many others of the same age. I hope, and am told, that it is better with you. May you live as long as you desire, for I have lost so many old friends, without getting any new, that I must keep you as a handsel of the former. I am, my long dear friend, with great esteem and love, Your most obedient humble servant,

J. SWIFT.

When I would write to you, I cannot remember the

street you live in.

AA 2

ΤΟ

TO WILLIAM RICHARDSON, ESQ.

SIR,

DUBLIN, APRIL 30, 1737.

IF it had pleased God to restore me to any

In

degree of health, I should have been setting out on Monday next to your house; but I find such a weekly decay, that has made it impossible for me to ride above five or six miles at farthest, and I always return the same day heartily tired. I have not an ounce of flesh or a dram of spirits left me: yet my greatest load is not my years but my infirmities. England, before I was twenty, I got a cold which gave me a deafness that I could never clear myself of. Although it came but seldom, and lasted but a few days, yet my left ear has never been well since; but when the deafness comes on, I can hear with neither ear, except it be a woman with a treble, and a man with a counter tenor. This unqualifies me for any mixed conversation and the fits of deafness increase; for I have now been troubled with it near seven weeks, and it is not yet lessened, which extremely adds to my mortification. I should not have been so particular in troubling you with my ailments, if they had not been too good an excuse for my inability to venture any where beyond the prospect of this town.

I am the more obliged to your great civilities, because I declare, without affectation, that it never -lay in my power to deserve any one of them. I find by the conversation I have had with you, that you understand