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fund, which will yield in any part of the world a revenue sufficient for one, qui peut se retrancher même avec plaisir dans la médiocrité. I use a

French expression, because I have not one that pleases me ready in English. During several months after leaving that obscure retreat, into which I had thrown myself last year, I went through all the mortifying circumstances imaginable.* At present I enjoy, as far as I consider myself, great complacency of mind; but this inward satisfaction is em

*The following was the apology which Bolingbroke offered for his flight from England:

"MY LORD,

Dover, March 27, 1715.

"I left town so abruptly that I had no time to take leave of you or any of my friends. You will excuse me when you know that I had certain and repeated informations from some who are in the secret of affairs, that a resolution was taken by those who have power to execute it to pursue me to the scaffold. My blood was to have been the cement of a new alliance; nor could my innocence be any security after it had been once demanded from abroad, and resolved on at home, that it was necessary to cut me off. Had there been the least reason to hope for a fair and open trial, after having been already prejudged, unheard, by two houses of parliament, I should not have declined the strictest examination. I challenge the most inveterate of my enemies to produce any one instance of a criminal correspondence, or the least corruption in any part of the administration where I was concerned. If my zeal for the honour and dignity of my royal mistress, and the true interest of my country, has any where transported me to let slip a warm and unguarded expression, I hope the most favourable interpretation will be put upon it. It is a comfort that will remain with me in all my misfortunes, that I served her majesty faithfully and dutifully, in that especially which she had most at heart, relieving her people from a bloody and expensive war ; and that I have also been too much an Englishman to sacrifice the interest of my country to any foreign ally: and it is for this crime only that I am now driven from thence. You shall hear more at large from me shortly. Yours, &c.”—Biogr. Brit. Lond. 1760, Vol. V. p. 3569.

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bittered, when I consider the condition of my friends. They are got into a dark hole, where they grope about after blind guides; stumble from mistake to mistake; jostle against one another, and dash their heads against the wall; and all this to no purpose. For assure yourself that there is no returning to light; no going out, but by going back.* My style is mystic, but it is your trade to deal in mysteries, and therefore I add neither comment nor excuse. You will understand me; and I conjure you to be persuaded that if I could have half an hour's conversation with you, for which I would barter whole hours of life, you would stare, haul your wig, and bite paper more than ever you did in your life. Adieu, dear friend; may the kindest influence of Heaven be shed upon you. Whether we may ever meet again, that Heaven only knows; if we do, what millions of things shall we have to talk over! In the mean while, believe that nothing sits so near my heart as my country and my friends; and that among these you ever had, and ever shall have, a principal place.

If you write to me, direct "A Monsieur Charlot, chez Monsieur Cantillon, banquier, rue de l'Arbre sec. ""* Once more adieu.

* Bolingbroke was now engaged in the intrigues of St Germains. His meaning may therefore, perhaps, be expressed in the words of Shakespeare:

Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,

And welcome home again deserted faith,

Seek out King James, and fall before his feet.

+ This is a strong picture of Swift's manner.-H. In Paris.-H.

FROM CHARLES FORD, ESQ.

SIR,

Paris, Oct. 28, 1716.

IF I was to see you again, you would give twice as much as you offered six weeks ago, not to have seen me. By the same rule, you might afford something not to hear from me; but the inclosed✶ came this morning to me, and I could not send it away, without adding a few lines to the cover. They are not to put you again into the spleen, but only to ask how you do, and how you employ yourself? Do the great designs go on at Laracor? Or have the rains put a stop to your improvements, as well as to my journey? It will cost you but a penny, and a few minutes to answer these questions; and in return you shall know any thing you desire to know of me in my travels. I shall go on as soon as we have five or six days sunshine to dry the roads, and make the finest country in the world supportable. I am laughed at here, when I talk of travelling, and yet of waiting for fair weather; but to me the journey is the greatest part of the pleasure. whereas my companion is continually wishing himself at Rome, I wish Rome was a thousand leagues farther that I might have more way to pass in France and Italy.

And

If you will do me the favour to write to me, direct to be left with Mr Cantillon, banker in Paris. I am, &c.

*The preceding letter of Lord Bolingbroke.

TO ARCHBISHOP KING.

MY LORD,

Dublin, Nov. 13, 1716.

THE reason I never gave your grace the trouble of a letter, was, because it could only be a trouble, without either entertainment or use; for I am so much out, even of this little world, that I know not the commonest occurrences in it; neither do I now write to your grace upon any sort of business, for I have nothing to ask but your blessing and favourable thoughts: only I conceived it ought not to be said, that your grace was several months absent in England, without one letter from the dean to pay his respects. My schemes are all circumscribed by the cathedral, and the liberties about it; where nothing of moment happened since your grace left it, except the election of Mr Chamberlain to St Nicholas, which passed quietly while I was absent in the country. I am purchasing a glebe, by the help of the trustees, for the vicarage of Laraçor; and I have vanity enough to desire it might be expressed by a clause in the deeds, as one consideration, that I had been instrumental in procuring the first-fruits; which was accordingly inserted; but hints were given it would not pass. Then the bishops of Ossory and Killaloe had, as I am told, a sum of money for their labour in that affair; who, upon my arrival at London to negotiate it, were one of them gone to Bath, and the other to Ireland: but it seems more reasonable to give bishops money for doing nothing, than a private gentleman thanks for succeeding where bishops have failed. I am only sorry I was not a bishop, that I might at least

have got money. The tory clergy here seem ready for conversion, provoked by a parcel of obscure zealots in London, who, as we hear, are setting up a new church of England by themselves. By our intelligence, it seems to be a complication of as much folly, madness, hypocrisy, and mistake, as ever was offered to the world. If it be understood so on your side, I cannot but think there would be a great opportunity of regaining the body of the clergy to the interest of the court: who, if they were persuaded by a few good words to throw off their fears, could never think of the pretender without horror; under whom it is obvious that those refiners would have the greatest credit, and consequently every thing be null since the time of the revolution, and more havock made in a few months, than the most desponding among the tories can justly apprehend from the present management in as many years. These at least are, as I am told, the thoughts and reasonings of the high church. people among us; but whether a court, in the midst of strength and security, will conceive it worth their while to cultivate the dispositions of people in the dust, is out of my reach.*

The Bishop of Dromore has never been in town since he went to his diocese, nor does he say any thing of coming up. He is in good health.

* It will be presently seen, that the archbishop made an ungene. rous use of this letter and showed the passage immediately preceding the reference, as a proof that Dr Swift was abandoning the high-church interest. It is difficult to screw such a meaning out of the fair import of the words, which seem only an allusion to the violence of the nonjuring and jacobite party, with whose politics Swift agreed still less than with the church government approved by the whigs. See Lewis's letters to Swift, 12th January 1716-17, and Swift's to Atterbury, 18th July 1717.

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