; The thing is indeed a little difficult and perplexed, yet a willing mind would make it easy; but that is wanted, and I cannot work it up. However, it shall not be my fault, if something be not made of it one time or other; but some people give their best friends reason to complain. I have at a venture put you down among poor Mr Prior's benefactors and I wonder what exemption you pretend to as appears by your letter to Mr Stewart. It seems you took the thousand pounds a-year in a literal sense, and even at that rate I hope you would not be excused. I hope your sheep-shearing in the county of Louth hath established your health; and that Dr Tisdall, your brother of the spleen, comes sometimes and makes you laugh at a pun or a blunder. I made a good many advances to your friend Bolton since I came to town, and talked of you; but all signified nothing; for he has taken every opportunity of opposing me, in the most unkind and unnecessary manner; and I have done with him. I could with great satisfaction pass a month or two among you, if things would permit. The archdeacon carries you all the news, and I need say nothing. We grow mightily sanguine, but my temper has not fire enough in it. They assure me that Lord Bolingbroke will be included in the act of grace; which, if it be true, is a mystery to me. You must learn to winter in town, or you will turn a monk, and Mrs Cope a nun; I am extremely her humble servant. I have ventured to subscribe a guinea for Mr Brownlowe, because I would think it a shame not to have his name in the list. Pray tell him so. * Dr Theophilus Bolton.-F. I doubt whether Mrs Cope will be pleased with the taste of snuff I sent her. Present my humble service to your mother and brother; and believe me to be, with great truth and esteem, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, TO BISHOP ATTERBURY. * MY LORD, Dublin, July 18, 1717. SOME persons of distinction, lately come from England, and not unknown to your lordship, have made me extremely pleased and proud, by telling me that your lordship was so generous as to defend me against an idle story that passed in relation to a letter of mine to the Archbishop of Dublin. I have corresponded for many years with his grace, though we generally differed in politics, and therefore our letters had often a good mixture of controversy. I confess likewise that I have been his grace's advocate, where he had not many others. About nine months ago I writ a letter to him in London (for in my little station it is convenient there should be some commerce between us); and in a short time after I had notice from several friends, that a passage in my letter was shown to several persons, * See the preceding letters between Archbishop King-and our author, dated 13th and 22d November 1716, and also Mr Lewis's letter 12th January 1716-17, from which it appears, that Archbishop King made an ungenerous use of Swift's commu. nication respecting the non-conformists. and a consequence drawn from thence, that I was wholly gone over to other principles more in fashion, and wherein I might better find my account. I neglected this report, as thinking it might soon die; but found it gathered strength, and spread to Oxford and this kingdom; and some gentlemen, who lately arrived here, assured me they had met it a hundred times, with all the circumstances of disadvantage that are usually tacked to such stories. by the great candour of mankind. It should seem as if I were somebody of importance; and if so, I should think the wishes not only of my friends, but of my party, might dispose them rather to believe me innocent, than condemn me unheard. Upon the first intelligence I had of this affair, I made a shift to recollect the only passage in that letter which could be any way liable to misinterpretation. I told the archbishop-" we had an account of a set of people in London, who were erecting a new church, upon the maxim that every thing was void, since the revolution, in the church as well as the state—that all priests must be re-ordained, bishops again consecrated, and in like manner of the restthat I knew not what there was in it of truth-that it was impossible such a scheme should ever passand that I believed if the court, upon this occasion, would shew some good-will to the church, discourage those who ill treated the clergy, &c. it would be the most popular thing they could think of." I keep no copies of letters; but this, I am confident, was the substance of what I wrote; and that every other line in the letter which mentioned public affairs would have atoned for this, if it had been a crime, as I think it was not in that juncture, whatever may be my opinion at present; for, I confess, my thoughts change every week, like those of a man in an incurable consumption, who daily finds himself more and more decay. tent. The trouble I now give your lordship is an ill return to your goodness in defending me; but it is the usual reward of goodness, and therefore you must be conIn the mean time, I am in a hopeful situation, torn to pieces by pamphleteers and libellers on that side the water, and by the whole body of the ruling party on this; against which all the obscurity I live in will not defend me. Since I came first to this kingdom, it has been the constant advice of all my church friends, that I should be more cautious. To oppose me in every thing relating to my station, ist made a merit in my chapter; and I shall probably live to make some bishops as poor, as Luther made many rich. I profess to your lordship, that what I have been writing is only with regard to the good opinion of your lordship, and of a very few others with whom you will think it of any consequence to an honest man that he should be set right. I am sorry that those who call themselves churchmen should be industrious to have it thought that their number is lessened, even by so inconsiderable a one as myself. But I am sufficiently recompensed, that your lordship knows me best, to whom I am so ambitious to be best known. God be thanked, I have but a few to satisfy. The bulk of my censurers are strangers, or ill judges, or worse than either; and if they will not obey your orders to correct their sentiments of me, they will meet their punishment in your lordship's disapprobation; which I would not incur for all their good words put together, and printed in twelve volumes folio. I am, with great respect, my Lord, your lordship's most dutiful and most humble servant, JON. SWIFT. FROM MR PRIOR. * DEAR SIR, Duke Street, Westminster, I HAVE the favour of four letters from you, of the ninth, thirteenth, sixteenth, and twentieth instant. They all came safe to me, however variously directed. But the last to me, at my house in Duke Street, is the rightest. I find myself equally comforted by your philosophy, and assisted by your friendship. You will easily imagine, that I have a hundred things to say to you, which for as many reasons I omit, and only touch upon that business, to which, in the pride of your heart, you give the epithet of sorry. † I return you the names of those who have been kind enough to subscribe, that you may see if they are rightly spelt, and the just titles put to them, as likewise if it has happened that any has subscribed for more than one *Endorsed, "Received Aug. 6, 1717. Answered the same day."-N. + Subscriptions for Mr Prior's poems, procured by the Dean. The subscription was two guineas.-H. |