I always told you Mr. was good for nothing but to be a rank courtier. I care not whether he ever writes to me or no. He and you may tell this to the Duchess, and I hate to see you charitable, and such a cully, and yet I love you for it, because I am one myself.

You are the silliest lover in Christendom: if you like Mrs. why do you not command her to take you? if she does not, she is not worth pursuing; you do her too much honour; she hath neither sense nor taste, if she dares to refuse you, though she had ten thousand pounds. I do not remember to have told you of thanks that you have not given, nor do I understand your meaning, and I am sure I had never the least thoughts of any myself. If I am your friend, it is for my own reputation, and from a principle of self-love, and I do sometimes reproach you for not honouring me by letting the world know we are friends.

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I see very well how matters go with the Duchess in regard to me. I have heard her say, Mr. Gay, your letter to the Dean, that there be no room for me; the frolic is gone far enough, I have writ thrice, I will do no more; if the man has a mind to come, let him come; what a clutter is here! positively I will not write a syllable more. She is an ungrateful Duchess, considering how many adorers I have procured her here, over and above the thousands she had before. I cannot allow you rich enough till you are worth 7,000l. which will bring you 3001. per annum, and this will maintain

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you, with the perquisite of spunging while you are young, and when you are old will afford you a pint of port at night, two servants, and an old maid, a little garden, and pen and ink-provided you live in the country. Have you no scheme either in verse or prose? The Duchess should keep you at hard meat, and by that means force you to write; and so I have done with you.

Madam,

Since I began to grow old, I have found all ladies become inconstant, without any reproach from their conscience. If I wait on you, I declare that one of your women (whichever it is that had designs upon a chaplain) must be my nurse, if I happen to be sick or peevish at your house, and in that case you must suspend your domineeringclaim till I recover. Your omitting the usual appendix to Mr. Gay's letters hath done me infinite mischief here; for while you continued them, you would wonder how civil the ladies here were to me, and how much they have altered since. I dare not confess that I have descended so low as to write to your Grace, after the abominable neglect you have been guilty of; for if they but suspected it, I should lose them all. One of them who had an inkling of the matter (your Grace will hardly believe it) refused to beg my pardon upon her knees, for once neglecting to make my rice-milk. Pray consider this, and do your duty, or dread the con

sequence. I promise you shall have your will six minutes every hour at Amesbury, and seven in London, while I am in health; but if I happen to be sick, I must govern to a second. Yet properly speaking, there is no man alive with so much truth and respect, your Grace's most obedient and devoted servant.

DEAR SIR,

I

LETTER CXI.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

July 20, 1731.

WRIT you a long letter not many days ago, which, therefore, did not arrive until after your last that I received yesterday, with the enclosed from me to the queen. You hinted something of this in a former letter: I will tell you sincerely how the affair stands. I never was at Mrs. Barber's house in my life, except once that I chanced to pass by her shop, was desired to walk in, and went no farther, nor staid three minutes. Dr. Delany has been long her protector; and he being many years my acquaintance, desired my good offices for her, and brought her several times to the deanery. I knew she was poetically given, and, for a woman, had a sort of genius that way. She appeared very modest and pious, and I believe was sincere; and wholly turned to poetry. I did conceive her journey to England was on the

score of her trade, being a woollen-draper, until Dr. Delany said, she had a design of printing her poems by subscription, and desired I would befriend her which I did, chiefly by your means; the doctor still urging me on: upon whose request I writ to her two or three times, because she thought that my countenancing her might be of use. Lord Carteret very much befriended her, and she seems to have made her way not ill. As for those three letters you mention, supposed all to be written by me to the queen, on Mrs. Barber's account, especially the letter which bears my name, I can only say, that the apprehensions one may be apt to have of a friend's doing a foolish thing, is an effect of kindness: and God knows who is free from playing the fool some time or other. But in such a degree as to write to the queen, who has used me ill without any cause, and to write in such a manner as the letter you sent me, and in such a style, and to have so much zeal for one almost a stranger, and to make such a description of a woman as to prefer her before all mankind; and to instance it as one of the greatest grievances of Ireland, that her majesty has not encouraged Mrs. Barber, a woollen-draper's wife declined in the world, because she has a knack at versifying ; was to suppose, or fear, a folly so transcendent, that no man could be guilty of, who was not fit for Bedlam. You know the letter you sent enclosed is not my hand; and why I should disguise, and

yet sign my name, should seem unaccountable:* especially when I am taught, and have reason to

The letter here adverted to, as sent with the signature of Swift to the queen, was as follows:†

MADAM,

Dublin, June 22, 1731.

I have had the honour to tell your majesty, on another occasion, that provinces labour under one mighty misfortune, which is, in a great measure, the cause of all the rest; and that is, that they are for the most part far removed from the prince's eye: and, of consequence, from the influence both of his wisdom and goodness. This is the case of Ireland beyond expression!

There is not one mortal here, who is not well satisfied of your majesty's good intentions to all your people: and yet your subjects of this isle are so far from sharing the effects of your good dispositions, in any equitable degree; are so far from enjoying all the good to which they are entitled from your majesty's most gracious inclinations: that they often find great difficulty how to enjoy even the relief of complaint.

To omit a thousand other instances, there is one person of Irish birth, eminent for genius and merit of many kinds, an honour to her country, and to her sex: I will be bold to say, not less so in her sphere than your majesty in yours. And yet all talents and virtues have not yet been able to influence any one person about your majesty, so far as to introduce her into your least notice. As I am your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subject, it is a debt I owe your majesty to acquaint you, that Mrs. Barber, the best female poet of this or perhaps of any age, is now in your majesty's

† It is thus endorsed by Dr. Swift: "Counterfeit letter from me to the Queen, sent to me by Mr. Pope; dated June 22, 1731; received July 19, 1731; given by the Countess of Suffolk." It is indignantly disavowed by Swift, and there are many expressions in it which cannot be supposed to accord with his general sentiments. Yet the purpose of so gross a fabrication, if it be one, seems utterly inexplicable. Sir W. Scott.