Herefordshire, but that, being at grass, he had ordered his man not to ride hard; but that you should have him with all convenient speed.

FROM DR ARBUTHNOT. *

St James's, June 12, 1714.

DEAR BROTHER, † I AM glad your proud stomach is come down, and that you submit to write to your friends. I was of opinion, that if they managed you right, they might bring you to be even fond of an article in the PostBoy or Flying-Post. As for the present state of our court affairs, I thank God, I am almost as ignorant as you are to my great ease and comfort. I have never inquired about any thing, since my Lady Masham told the dragon, that she would carry no more messages, nor meddle nor make, &c. I do not know whether things were quite so bad when you went. The dragon manages this bill pretty well; for you know that it is his forte: and I believe, at the rate they go on, they will do mischief to themselves, and good to nobody else.

You know that Gay goes to Hanover, and my lord-treasurer has promised to equip him. Monday is the day of departure; and he is now dancing

* At that time the queen's domestic physician.

+ One of the sixteen.-H.

Lord treasurer Oxford.—B

"To prevent the growth of schism, and for the farther se curity of the Church of England, as by law established." It passed the house of lords, June 13, 1714.-B.

attendance for money to buy him shoes, stockings, and linen. The duchess* has turned him off, which, I am afraid, will make the poor man's condition worse, instead of better.

The dragon was with us on Saturday night last, after having sent us really a most excellent copy of verses. I really believe when he lays down, he will prove a very good poet. I remember the first part of his verses was complaining of ill usage; and at last he concludes,

"He that cares not to rule, will be sure to obey,

When summon'd by Arbuthnot, Pope, Parnell, and Gay."

Parnell has been thinking of going chaplain to my Lord Clarendon; but they will not say whether he should or not. I am to meet our club at the Pall-Mall coffeehouse, about one to-day, where we cannot fail to remember you. The queen is in good health; much in the same circumstances with the gentleman I mentioned, in attendance upon her ministers for something she cannot obtain. My Lord and my Lady Masham, and Lady Fair, remember you kindly; and none with more sincere respect than your affectionate brother and humble servant, Jo. ARBUTHNOT.

7

* The Duchess of Monmouth, to whom he had been secre. tary.-H.

FROM MR POPE.

June 18, 1714,

WHATEVER apologies it might become me to make at any other time for writing to you, I shall use none now, to a man who has owned himself as splenetic as a cat in the country. In that circumstance, I know by experience a letter is a very useful, as well as amusing thing: if you are too busied in state affairs to read it, yet you may find entertainment in folding it into divers figures, either doubling it into a pyramidical, or twisting it into a serpentine form, to light a pipe; or if your disposition should not be so mathematical, in taking it with you to that place where men of studious minds are apt to sit longer than ordinary; where, after an abrupt division of the paper, it may not be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the broken lines together. All these amusements I am no stranger to in the country, and doubt not but (by this time) you begin to relish them, in your present contemplative situation.

I remember a man, who was thought to have some knowledge in the world, used to affirm, that no people in town ever complained they were forgotten by their friends in the country. but my increasing experience convinces me he was mistaken, for I find a great many here grievously complaining of you, upon this score. I am told farther, that you treat the few you correspond with in a very arrogant style, and tell them you admire at their insolence in disturbing your meditations, or even inquiring of your retreat: but this I will not po

sitively assert, because I never received any such insulting epistle from you. My Lord Oxford says you have not written to him once since you went; but this perhaps may be only policy, in him or you and I, who am half a whig, must not entirely credit any thing he affirms. thing he affirms. At Button's it is reported you are gone to Hanover, and that Gay goes only on an embassy to you. Others apprehend some dangerous state treatise from your retirement; and a wit who affects to imitate Balzac, says, that the ministry now are like those heathens of old, who received their oracles from the woods. The gentlemen of the Roman catholic persuasion are not unwilling to credit me, when I whisper that you are gone to meet some Jesuits commissioned from the court of Rome in order to settle the most convenient methods to be taken for the coming of the pretender.* Dr Arbuthnot is singular in his opinion, and imagines your only design is to attend at full leisure to the life and adventures of Scriblerus. † This, indeed, must be granted of greater importance than all the rest; and I wish I could promise so well of you. The top of my own ambition is to contribute to that great work, and I shall translate Homer by the by. Mr Gay has ac

* This might have been a serious joke had Swift been fully confidential to the plans of Bolingbroke.

+ This project (in which the principal persons engaged were Dr Arbuthnot, Dr Swift, and Mr Pope) was a very noble one. It was to write a complete satire in prose upon the abuses in every branch of science, comprised in the history of the life and writings of Scriblerus: the issue of which were only some detached parts and fragments, such as the "Memoirs of Scrible. rus," the "Travels of Gulliver," the "Treatise of the Profound," the literal "Criticisms on Virgil," &c.-Warburton.

quainted you what progress I have made in it. I cannot name Mr Gay, without all the acknowledgments which I shall ever owe you, on his account. If I writ this in verse, I would tell you, you are like the sun, and while men imagine you to be retired or absent, are hourly exerting your indulgence, and bringing things to maturity for their advantage. Of all the world, you are the man (without flattery) who serve your friends with the least ostentation; it is almost ingratitude to thank you, considering your temper, and this is the period of all my letter which I fear you will think the most impertinent.

I am, with the truest affection,

Yours, &c.

FROM THOMAS HARLEY, ESQ.*.

SIR,

June, 19, 1714.

Your letter gave me a great deal of pleasure. I do not mean only the satisfaction one must always find in hearing from so good a friend, who has distinguished himself in the world, and formed a new character, which nobody is vain enough to pretend to imitate. † But you must know, the mo

* This gentleman was cousin to the lord-treasurer. He died in January 1737; and left his estate to Edward Harley, Esq.-H. This is a judicious and well-merited compliment. For Swift, in his intercourse with the great, was so totally disinterested as to lay them under the necessity of treating him with disstinction and respect, which are never paid to those whom a ministry know they have at command upon the usual terms of purchase and sale.