his purposes,* knows only whether it be for the better or the worse, that the affections of this life should, or should not continue into the other: and doubtless it is as it should be. Yet I am sure that while I am here, and the thing that I am, I shall be imperfect without the communication of such friends as you; you are to me like a limb lost, and buried in another country; though we seem quite divided, every accident makes me feel you were once a part of me. I always consider you so much as a friend, that I forget you are an author, perhaps too much, but it is as much as I would desire you would do to me. However, if I could inspirit you to bestow correction upon those three treatises, which you say are so near completed, I should think it a better work than any I can pretend to of my own. I am almost at the end of my morals, as I have been long ago, of my wit; my system is a short one, and my circle narrow. gination has no limits, and that is a sphere in which you may move on to eternity; but where one is confined to truth (or to speak more like a human creature, to the appearances of truth) we soon find the shortness of our tether. Indeed, by the help of a metaphysical chain of ideas, one may Ima * This phraseology is rather objectionable. The purpose of the Creator was the happiness of his creatures, and his motive was consequently benevolence. To suppose that he had any other purpose to answer would be inconsistent with our idea of his divine perfection. †The doctrine uniformly asserted by Pope, and which connects the present with a future state, as right upon the whole. extend the circulation, go round and round for ever, without making any progress beyond the point to which Providence has pinned us: but this does not satisfy me, who would rather say a little to no purpose, than a great deal. Lord B. is voluminous, but he is voluminous only to destroy volumes. I shall not live, I fear, to see that work printed;* he is so taken up still (in spite of the monitory hint given in the first line of my essay) with particular men, that he neglects mankind, and is still a creature of this world, not of the universe: this world, which is a name we give to Europe, to England, to Ireland, to London, to Dublin, to the Court, to the Castle, and so diminishing, till it comes to our own affairs, and to our own persons. When you write (either to him or me, for we accept it all as one) rebuke him for it, as a divine if you like it, or as a Badineur, if you think that more effectual. What I write will shew that my head is yet weak. I had written to you by that gentleman from the Bath, but I did not know him, and every body that comes from Ireland, pretends to be a friend of the Dean's. I am always glad to see any that are truly so, and therefore do not mistake any thing I said, so as to discourage your sending any such to me. Adieu. * Pope's Essay on Man had now been some time published, yet Lord B. was still employed on his metaphysical works which Pope is said only to have versified LETTER CXLVII. DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE. May 12, 1735. OUR Your letter was sent me yesterday by Mr. Stopford, who landed the same day, but I have not yet seen him. As to my silence, God knows it is my great misfortune. My little domestic affairs are in great confusion by the villany of agents, and the miseries of this kingdom, where there is no money to be had: nor am I unconcerned to see all things tending towards absolute power, in both nations (it is here in perfection already) although I shall not live to see it established. This condition of things, both public and personal to myself, hath given me such a kind of despondency, that I am almost unqualified for any company, diversion, or amusement. The deaths of Mr. Gay and the Doctor,† have been terrible wounds near my heart. Their living would have been a great comfort to me, although I should never have seen them; like a sum of money in a bank, from which I should receive at least annual interest, as I do from you, and have done from my Lord Bolingbroke. To shew in how much ignorance I live, it is hardly a fortnight since I heard of the death of my Lady Mas Mr. Stopford was a Fellow of the College of Dublin. He is honourably mentioned in Swift's Letter to Lord Carteret. He was afterwards Bishop of Cloyne. + Arbuthnot. Bowles. ham, my constant friend in all changes of times. God forbid that I should expect you to make a voyage that would in the least affect your health: but in the mean time how unhappy am I, that my best friend should have perhaps the only kind of disorder for which a sea voyage is not in some degree a remedy? The old Duke of Ormond said, he would not change his dead son (Ossory) for the best living son in Europe. Neither would I change you my absent friend for the best present friend round the globe. I have lately read a letter imputed to Lord B., called a Dissertation upon Parties.* I think it very masterly written. Pray God reward you for your kind prayers: I believe your prayers will do me more good than those of all the prelates in both kingdoms, or any prelates in Europe, except the bishop of Marseilles.+ And God preserve you for contributing more to mend the world, than the whole pack of (modern) parsons in a lump. I am ever entirely yours. * The best, perhaps, of all Bolingbroke's works; written with great force of reasoning, and in a style equally spirited and elegant. One of the severest attacks ever made on Sir Robert Walpole, was the Dedication prefixed to this Dissertation, when the papers that had been first separately printed in the Craftsman, were collected into one volume octavo. Warton. + Pope has worthily commemorated this truly apostolic prelate: "Marseilles' good Bishop drew not purer breath." Bowles. LETTER CXLVIII. DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE. September 3, 1735. THIS letter will be delivered to you by Faulkner the printer, who goes over on his private affairs. This is an answer to yours of two months ago, which complains of that profligate fellow Curll. I heartily wish you were what they call disaffected, as I am. I may say as David did, I have sinned greatly, but what have these sheep done? You have given no offence to the ministry, nor to the Lords, nor Commons, nor Queen, nor the next in power. For you are a man of virtue, and therefore must abhor vice and all corruption, although your discretion holds the reins. You need not fear any consequence in the commerce that hath so long passed between us; although I never destroyed one of your letters. But my executors are who have strict orders men of honour and virtue, in my will to burn every letter left behind me. Neither did our letters contain any turns of wit, or fancy, or politics, or satire, but mere innocent friendship: yet I am loth that any letters, from you and a very few other friends, should die before me. I believe we neither of us ever leaned our head upon our left hand to study what we should write next; yet we have held a constant intercourse from your youth and my middle age, and from your middle age it must be continued till |