DEAR SIR,

FROM THE SAME.

May 29, 1718.

I HAVE received yours of the 6th, with the list corrected. I have two colon and comma men. We correct, and design to publish, as fast as the nature of this great or sorry work, as you call it, will bear; but we shall not be out before Christmas, so that our friends abroad may complete their collection till Michaelmas, and be returned soon enough to have their names printed and their books got ready for them. I thank you most heartily for what you have been pleased to do in this kind. Give yourself no farther trouble: but if any gentleman, between this and Michaelmas, desires to subscribe, do not refuse it. I have received the money of Mr Mitford.

I am going to-morrow morning to the Bath, to meet Lord Harley there. I shall be back in a month.

The Earl of Oxford is still here. He will go into Herefordshire some time in June. He says he will write to you himself. Am I particular enough? Is this prose? And do I distinguish tenses? I have nothing more to tell you, but that you are the happiest man in the world; and if you are once got into la bagatelle, you may despise the world. Beside contriving emblems, such as cupids, torches, and hearts for great letters,* I am now unbinding two volumes of printed heads, to have them bound to

* A sort of splendid, but very unnecessary ornament, which is banished from modern typography.

gether in better order than they were before. Do not you envy me? For the rest, matters continue sicut olim. I will not tell you how much I want you, and I cannot tell you how well I love you. Write to me, my dear dean, and give my service to all our friends. Yours ever, M. PRIOR.

FROM PETER LUDLOW, ESQ.*

September 10, 1718.

I SEND you the enclosed pamphlet by a private hand, not daring to venture it by the common post; for it is a melancholy circumstance we are now in, that friends are afraid to carry on even a bare correspondence, much more to write news, or send papers of consequence (as. I take the enclosed to be) that way. But I suppose I need make no apology for not sending it by post, for you must know, and own too, that my fears are by no means groundless. For your friend, Mr Manley,† has been guilty of opening letters that were not directed to him, nor his wife, nor really to one of his acquaintance. Indeed, I own, it so happened, that they were of no consequence, but secrets of state, secrets of families,

* Of Arsulagh, in the county of Meath, Esq. grandson of the famous Ludlow, who wrote the Memoirs of his own Times. ---F. It is impossible to discover to what piece of political waggery his letter refers.

+ Postmaster-general of Ireland, whom Dr Swift had greatly befriended in Queen Anne's time.---D. S.

and other secrets (that one would by no means let Mr Manley know) might have been discovered; besides a thousand, nay, for aught I know, more than a thousand calamities might have ensued; I need not, I believe, enumerate them to you; but to be plain with you, no man nor woman would, (with their eyes open,) be obliged to show all they had to Mr Manley. These I think sufficient reasons for sending it in the manner I do; but submit them and myself to your candour and censure.

The paper, I believe, you'll find very artfully written, and a great deal couched under the appearance (I own at first) of blunders and a silly tale. For who, with half an eye, may not perceive, that by the old woman's being drowned at Ratcliff-highway, and not dead yet, is meant the church, which may be sunk or drowned, but, in all probability, will rise again. Then the man, who was followed, and overtaken, is easily guessed at. He could not tell (the ingenious author says) whether she was dead: true but may be he will tell soon. But then the author goes on (who must be supposed a highchurchman) and inquires of a man riding a-horseback upon a mare. That's preposterous, and must allude to a great man who has been guilty (or he is foully belied) of very preposterous actions; when the author comes up to him, the man takes him for a robber, or tory, and ran from him, but you find he pursued him furiously. Mark that: and the horse. This is indeed carrying a figure farther than Homer does he makes the shield or its device an epithet sometimes to his warrior, but never, as I remember, puts it in place of the person; but there is a figure for this in rhetoric, which I own I do not remember; by which we often say, He is a good fiddle, or rather, as by the gown is often meant particular

:

parsons. Well then, you find the horse, seeing himself dead, or undone, ran away as fast as he could, and left the preposterous fellow to go a-foot. During this their misfortune, the candid author, (whom I cannot mention without a profound respect) calls them friends, and means to do them no harm; only inquires after the welfare of the church.-Ah! dear sir, this is the true character of the tories. And here I cannot but compare the generosity and good nature of the one, with the sullen ingratitude of the other; we find the horse gone, and they footing it give a surly answer; while the other (though a conqueror) offers his friendship, and asks the question with a "Pray inform me.

I have gone, my dear friend, thus far with the paper, to show you how excellent a piece I take it to be, and must beg the favour of you to give me your opinion of it, and send me your animadversions upon the whole; which I am confident you will not refuse me, when you consider of how great an advantage they will be to the whole earth, who, may be, to this day, have read over these sheets with too superficial an understanding; and especially since it is the request of, learned Sir,

Your most dutiful and obedient humble servant, SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE.

I submit it to your better judgment (when you make a more curious inquiry into the arcana of this piece) to consider whether, by Sir John Vangs (who you find lives by the water-side) must not be meant the Dutch; since you find too, that he eats bag-pudding freezing hot; this may seem a paradox, but I have been assured by a curious friend of mine of great veracity, who had lived many winters in Holland, that nothing is more common than for hot pudding

to freeze in that cold country: but then what convinces me that by Sir John the Dutch must be meant, is, that you find he creeps out of a stopperhole, which alludes to their mean origin. I must observe too, that gammer Vangs had an old woman to her son. That's a bob for Glorious.*-But I am under great concern to find so hard a sentence past upon poor Swift, because he's little. I think him better than any of them, and hope to see him greater.

FROM MR PRIOR.†

MY DEAR DEAN,

London, Sept. 25, 1718.

I HAVE NOW made an end of what you, in your haughty manner, have called wretched work. My book is quite printed off; and if you are as much upon the bagatelle as you pretend to be, you will find more pleasure in it than you imagine. We are going to print the subscribers' names: if, therefore, you have any by you, which are not yet remitted, pray send them over by the next post. If you have not, pray send me word of that too; that, in all cases, I may at least hear from you. The Earl of Oxford has been in town all this summer,, is now going into

*The common appellation in Ireland for King William III. ---D. S.

+ On the back of this letter the Dean has written..." Levanda est enim paupertas eorum hominum, qui diu reipublicæ viventes, pauperes sunt, et nullorum magis."---N.