been spared. Pray be more positive in your answer to this.

Margoose, and not Mergoose: it is spelt with an a, simpleton.

No, I am pretty well after my walk. I am glad the archdeacon† got home safe, and I hope you took care of him. It was his own fault; how could I know where he was? and he could have easily overtaken me; for I walked softly on purpose; I told Delany I would,

SIR,

TO THE REV. MR WALLIS.‡

Dublin, May 18, 1721.

I HAD your letter, and the copy of the bishop's circular enclosed, for which I thank you; and yet I will not pretend to know any thing of it, and hope you have not told any body what you did. I should be glad enough to be at the visitation, not out of any love to the business of the person, but to do my part in preventing any mischief. But in truth my health will not suffer it; and you, who are to be my proxy, may safely give it upon your veracity. I am confident the bishop would

* Chateau Margoux, a sort of claret so called. The Dean's spelling is not more correct than Stella's.

+ Archdeacon Walls.

This letter and the following respect the right of the Bishop of Meath to enforce the Dean of St Patrick's personal attendance at his visitation. See Swift's letter to that bishop upon the same subject, 22d May 1719.

not be dissatisfied with wanting my company, and yet he may give himself airs when he finds I am not there. I now employ myself in getting you a companion to cure your spleen. I am,

Your faithful humble servant,

J. S.

TO THE BISHOP OF MEATH.

July 5, 1721.

MY LORD, I HAVE received an account of your lordship's refusing to admit my proxy at your visitation,* with several circumstances of personal reflections on myself, although my proxy attested my want of health; to confirm which, and to lay before you the justice and christianity of your proceeding, above a hundred persons of quality and distinction can witness, that since Friday the 26th of May, I have been tormented with an ague, in as violent a manner as possible, which still continues, and forces me to make use of another hand in writing to you. At the same time, I must be plain to tell you, that if this accident had not happened, I should have used all endeavours to avoid your visitation, upon the public promise I made you three years ago, and the motives which occasioned it; because I was unwilling to hear any more very injurious treatment and appellations given to my brethren, or myself; and by the grace of God, I am still determined to absent myself on the like occasion, as far as I can

* See the preceding letter to Mr Wallis.

possibly be dispensed with by any law, while your lordship is in that diocese, and I a member of it: In which resolution I could not conceive but your lordship would be easy; because, although my presence might possibly contribute to your real (at least future) interest, I was sure it could not to your present satisfaction.

If I had had the happiness to have been acquainted with any one clergyman in the diocese, of your lordship's principles, I should have desired him to represent me, with hopes of better success: but I wish you would sometimes think it convenient to distinguish men, as well as principles; and not to look upon every person, who happens to owe you canonical obedience, as if

I have the honour to be ordinary over a considerable number of as eminent divines as any in this kingdom, who owe me the same obedience as I owe to your lordship, and are equally bound to attend my visitation; yet neither I, nor any of my predecessors, to my knowledge, did ever refuse a regular proxy.

I am only sorry that you, who are of a country famed for good nature, have found a way to unite the hasty passion of your own countrymen,* with the long, sedate resentment of a Spaniard: but I have an honourable hope, that this proceeding has been more owing to party, than complexion. I am,

My Lord, your lordship's most humble servant.

"He was your lordship's footman," may perhaps be the implied conclusion of the sentence. Swift makes direct use of such an expression in his former letter to the bishop, but here trusts to his apprehension to fill up the blank.

The bishop was a Welshman.---D. S.

FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE.

July 28, 1721.

I NEVER was so angry in all my life, as I was with you last week, on the receipt of your letter of the 19th of June. The extreme pleasure it gave me takes away all the excuses which I had invented for your long neglect. I design to return my humble thanks to those men of eminent gratitude and integrity, the weavers and the judges, and earnestly to entreat them, instead of tossing you in the person of your proxy, who had need to have iron ribs to endure all the drubbings you will procure him, to toss you in your proper person, the next time you offend, by going about to talk sense or to do good to the rabble. Is it possible that one of your age and profession should be ignorant, that this monstrous beast has passions to be moved, but no reason to be appealed to; and that plain truth will influence half a score men at most in a nation, or an age, while mystery will lead millions by the nose?

Dear Jonathan, since you cannot resolve to write as you preach, what public authority allows, what councils and senates have decided to be orthodox, instead of what private opinion suggests, leave off instructing the citizens of Dublin. Believe me, there is more pleasure, and more merit too, in cultivating friendship, than in taking care of the state. Fools and knaves are generally best fitted for the last; and none but men of sense and virtue are capable of the other. How comes it then to pass, that you, who have sense though you have wit, and virtue though you have kept bad company in your time, should be

so surprised that I continue to write to you, and expect to hear from you, after seven years absence?

Anni prædantur euntes, say you; and time will lop off my luxuriant branches: perhaps it will be so. But I have put the pruning hook into a hand which works hard to leave the other as little to do of that kind as may be. Some superfluous twigs are every day cut; and as they lessen in number, the bough, which bears the golden fruit of friendship, shoots, swells, and spreads.

Our friend told you what he heard, and what was commonly said, when he told you that I had taken the fancy of growing rich. If I could have resolved to think two minutes a-day about stocks, to flatter law half an hour a-week, or to have any obligation to people I neither loved nor valued, certain it is that I might have gained immensely. But not caring to follow the many bright examples of these kinds, which France furnished, and which England sent us over, I turned the little money I had of my own, without being let into any secret, very negligently: and if I have secured enough to content me, it is because I was soon contented. I am sorry to hear you confess, that the love of money has got into your head. Take care, or it will, ere long, sink into your heart, the proper seat of passions. Plato, whom you cite, looked upon riches, and the other advantages of fortune, to be desirable; but he declared, as you have read in Diogenes Laërtius, Ea etsi non affluerint, nihilominus tamen beatum fore sapientem. You may think it, perhaps, hard to reconcile his two journies into Sicily with this maxim, especially since he got fourscore talents of the tyrant. But I can assure you, that he went to the elder Dionysius only to buy books, and to the younger only to borrow a piece of ground, and a