all I am worth. But I have still a worse evil; for the giddiness I was subject to, instead of coming seldom and violent, now constantly attends me more or less, though in a more peaceable manner, yet such as will not qualify me to live me to live among the young and healthy and the Duchess in all her youth, spirit, and grandeur, will make a very ill nurse, and her women not much better. Valetudinarians must live where they can command, and scold; I must have horses to ride, I must go to bed and rise when I please, and live where all mortals are subservient to me. I must talk nonsense when I please, and all who are present must commend it. I must ride thrice a week, and walk three or four miles, besides, every day.

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.

pro

I see very well how matters go with the Duchess in regard to me. I heard her say6, Mr. Gay, fill 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 cured her here, over and above the thousands she had before. I cannot allow you rich enough till you are worth 7000l. which will bring you 300l. per annum, and this will maintain 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 inconsistent without any reproach from their conscience. If I wait on you, I declare that one of

There is exquisite humour and pleasantry in the affected bluntness of this letter, and the elegant compliments paid under the appearance of rudeness. Voiture has nothing more delicate. Waller's to Saccharissa on her marriage, is in the same strain, and is a masterpiece of panegyric under the appearance of satire.

your women (whichever it is that has 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 domineering claim till I recover. Your omitting the usual appendix to Mr. Gay's letter 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 consequence. I promise you shall have your will six minutes every hour at Aimsbury, 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.

LETTER LIV.

[It is thought proper to subjoin the very last Letter our Author ever wrote to Dr. Swift.]

DEAREST SIR,

May 17, 1739. EVERY time I see your hand, it is the greatest satisfaction that any writing can give me ; and I am in proportion grieved to find, that several of my Letters to testify it to you, miscarry; and you ask me the same questions again, which I prolixly have answered before. Your last, which was delivered me by Mr. Swift, enquires where and how is Lord Bolingbroke? who in a paragraph in my last, under his own hand, gave you an account of himself; and I employed almost a whole letter on his affairs afterwards. He has sold Dawley for twenty-six thousand pounds, much to his own satisfaction. His plan of life is now a very agreeable one, in the finest country of France, divided between study and exercise; for he still reads or writes five or six hours a day, and generally hunts twice a week. He has the whole forest of Fontainbleau at his command, with the King's stables and dogs, &c. his Lady's son-in-law being Governor of that place. She resides most part of the year with my Lord, at a large house they have hired, and the rest with her daughter, who is Abbess of a Royal Convent in the neighbourhood.

I never saw him in stronger health, or in better humour with his friends, or more indifferent and dispassionate to his enemies. He is seriously set

upon writing some parts of the history of his times, which he has begun by a noble introduction, presenting a view of the whole state of Europe, from the Pyrenean treaty. He has hence deduced a summary sketch of the natural and incidental interests of each kingdom, and how they are varied from, or approach to, the true politics of each, in the several administrations to this time. The history itself will be particular only on such facts and anecdotes as he personally knew, or produces vouchers for, both from home and abroad. This puts into my mind to tell you a fear he expressed lately to me, that some facts in your history of the Queen's last years (which he read here with me in 1727) are not exactly stated, and that he may be obliged to vary from them, in relation, I believe, to the conduct of the Earl of Oxford, of which great care surely should be taken. And he told me, that when he saw you in 1727, he made you observe them, and that you promised you would take care.

We very often commemorated you during the five months we lived together at Twickenham. At which place could I see you again, as I may hope to see him, I would envy no country in the world; and think not Dublin only, but France and Italy, not worth the visiting once more in my life. The mention of travelling introduces your old acquaintance Mr. Jervas, who went to Rome and Naples purely in search of health. An asthma has reduced his body, but his spirit retains all its vigour; and he is returned, declaring life itself not worth a day's journey, at the expense of parting from one's friends.