participer au plaisir que m'a fait ce bon monsieur, & profiter de ses découvertes. Je ne désespére pas même que 12 vaisseaux que la France vient d'armer ne puissent être destinés à une embassade chez messieurs les Houyhnhnms. En ce cas je vous proposerai, que nous fassions ce voyage. En attendant je sai bon gré à un ouvrier de votre nation, qui pour instruire les dames (lesquelles comme vous savez, monsieur, font ici un grand usage de leurs éventails) en a fait faire, ou toutes les aventures de notre véridique voyageur sont dépeintes. Vous jugez bien quelle part il va avoir dans leur conversation. Cela fera à la vérité beaucoup de tort à la pluie & au beautems, qui en remplissoient une partie, & en mon particulier je sera privée des very cold et very warm, qui sont les seuls mots que j'entends. Je conte de vous envoyer de ces éventails par un de vos amis. Vous vous en ferez un mérite avec les dames d'Irlande, si tant est que vous en ayez besoin; ce que je ne crois pas, du moins si elles pensent comme les Françoises. Le seigneur de Dawley, Mr. Pope, & moi sommes ici occupés à boire, manger, dormir, ou ne rien faire, priant Dieu qu'ainsi soit de vous. Revenez ce printems nous revoir, monsieur ; j'attend votre retour avec impatience pour tuer le boeuf le plus pesant, & le cochon le plus gras, qui soit dans ma ferme l'un & l'autre seront servis en entier sur la table de votre révérence, crainte que mon cuisinier n'use aucun déguisement. Vous brillerez parmi nous du moins autant que parmi vos chanoines, & nous ne serons pas moins empressés à vous plaire. Je le disputerai à tout autre, étant plus que personne du monde votre très humble & très obeissante servante.

FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE.

FEB. 17, 1726-7.

THIS opportunity of writing to you I cannot neg

lect, though I shall have less to say to you than I should have by another conveyance. Mr. Stopford being fully informed of all that passes in this boisterous climate of ours, and carrying with him a cargo of our weekly productions. You will find anger on one side, and rage on the other; satire on one side, and defamation on the other. Ah! où est Grillon? You suffer much where you are, as you tell me in an old letter of yours which I have before me; but you suffer with the hopes of passing next summer between Dawley and Twickenham; and these hopes, you flatter us enough to intimate, support your spirits. Remember this solemn renewal of your engagements. Remember, that though you are a dean, you are not great enough to despise the reproach of breaking your word. Your deafness must not be a hackney excuse to you, as it was to Oxford. What matter if you are deaf? what matter if you cannot hear what we say? You are not dumb, and we shall hear you, and that is enough. My wife writes to you herself, and sends you some fans just arrived from Lilliput, which you will dispose of to the present Stella*, whoever she be. Adieu, dear friend, I

* Mrs. Johnson died the month preceding the date of this letter. But, considering the tenderness with which the dean was known to regret her loss, this is a strange expression.

cannot

cannot in conscience keep you any longer from enjoying Mr. Stopford's conversation. I am hurrying myself here, that I may get a day or two for Dawley, where I hope that you will find me established at your return. There I propose to finish my days in ease, without sloth; and believe I shall seldom visit London, unless it be to divert myself now and then with annoying fools and knaves for a month or two. Once more adieu; no man loves you better than your faithful B.

MADAM,

TO MRS. HOWARD*.

FEB. 1, 1726-7.

I AM so very nice, and my workmen so fearful,

that there is yet but one piece finished of the two, which you commanded me to send to her royal highness. The other was done; but the undertaker, confessing it was not to the utmost perfection, has obtained my leave for a second attempt; in which he promises to do wonders, and tells me it will be ready in another fortnight; although, perhaps, the humour may be quite off both with the princess and you; for, such were courts when I knew them. I desire you will order her royal highness to go to Richmond as soon as she can this summer, because she will have the pleasure of my neighbourhood; for I hope to be in London by the mid

* Afterward countess of Suffolk.

dle

:

dle of March, and I do not love you much when you are there and I expect to find you are altered by flattery or ill company. I am glad to tell you now, that I honour you with my esteem; because, when the princess grows a crowned head, you shall have no more such compliments; and it is a hundred to one whether you will deserve them. I do not approve of your advice to bring over pumps for myself, but will rather provide another shoe for his royal highness*, against there shall be occasion. I will tell you an odd accident that happened this night-While I was caressing one of my Houhynhnms, he bit my little finger so cruelly, that I am hardly able to write; and I impute the cause to some foreknowledge in him, that I was going to write to a Sieve Yahoo, for so you are pleased to call yourself. Pray tell sir Robert Walpole, that if he does not use me better next summer than he did

last, I will study revenge, and it shall be vengeance ecclésiastique. I hope you will get your house and wine ready, to which Mr. Gay and I are to have free access when you are at court; for, as to Mr. Pope, he is not worth considering on such occasions. I am sorry I have no complaints to make of her royal highness; therefore, I think, I may let you tell her, "That every grain of virtue and good sense, in one "of her rank, considering the bad education among "flatterers and adorers, is worth a dozen in any in"feriour person." Now, if what the world says be true, that she excels all other ladies at least a dozen times; then, multiply one dozen by the other, you

* Gulliver's Travels, Voyage to Lilliput, chap. IV.

+ See Mrs. Howard's letter, p. 213.

will find the number to be one hundred and fortyfour. If any one can say a civiler thing, let him; for I think it too much for me.

I have some title to be angry with you, for not commanding those who write to me to mention your remembrance. Can there be any thing more base, than to make me the first advances, and then be inconstant? It is very hard, that I must cross the sea, and ride two hundred miles, to reproach you in person; when, at the same time, I feel myself, with the most entire respect,

Madam, &c.

DEAR SIR,

FROM MR. GAY.

WHITEHALL, FEB. 18, 1726-7.

I BELIEVE it is now my turn to write to you, though Mr. Pope has taken all I have to say, and put it into a long letter, which is sent too by Mr. Stopford but however, I could not omit this occasion of thanking you for his acquaintance. I do not know whether I ought to thank you or not, considering I have lost him so soon, though he has given me some hopes of seeing him again in the summer. He will give you an account of our negotiations together; and I may now glory in my success, since I could contribute to his. We dined together to day at the doctor's, who, with me, was in high delight upon an information Mr. Stopford gave us, that we are likely to see you soon. My

fables