him a day till I see him better. I wish you could see us in England without manifest inconvenience to yourself; though I heartily hope and believe that our friend will do well. I sincerely honour you for your warmth of affection, where it is so justly merited and am, both for his sake and your own, with great esteem, sir, your truly affectionate and obedient servant,

A. POPE.

P. S. I have often desired the dean to make known to you my sense of the good opinion you have expressed of me in your letters. I am pleased to have an opportunity of thanking you under my hand, and I desire you to continue it to one, who is no way ungrateful.

FROM MRS. HOWARD.

SEPTEMBER, 1727.

I DID desire you to write me a love letter; but I never did desire you to talk of marrying me. I would rather you and I were dumb, as well as deaf, for ever, than that should happen. I would take your giddiness, your headach, or any other complaint you have, to resemble you in one circumstance of life. So that I insist upon your thinking yourself a very happy man, at least whenever you make a comparison between yourself and me. I likewise insist upon your taking no resolution to leave Eng

land till I see you; which must be here, for the most disagreeable reason in the world, and the most shocking; I dare not go to you. Believe no body, that talks to you of the queen, without you are sure the person likes both the queen and you. I have been a slave twenty years, without ever receiving a reason for any one thing I ever was obliged to do and I have now a mind to take the pleasure, once in my life, of absolute power; which I expect you to give me, in obeying all my orders, without one question why I have given them.

TO MR. WORRALL.

LONDON, SEPT. 12, 1727.

I HAVE not writ to you this long time, nor would I now, if it were not necessary. By Dr. Sheridan's frequent letters, I am every post expecting the death of a friend, with whose loss I shall have very little regard for the few years that nature may leave me. I desire to know where my two friends lodge. I gave a caution to Mrs. Brent that it might not be in domo decani, quoniam hoc minimè decet, uti manifestum est: habeo enim malignos, qui sinistrè hoc interpretabuntur, si eveniet (quod Deus avertat) ut illic moriatur. I am in such a condition of health, that I cannot possibly travel. Dr. Sheridan, to whom I write this post, will be more particular, and spare my weak disordered head. Pray answer all call of money in your power to Mrs. Dingley, and desire her to ask it. I cannot

come

come back at the time of my license, I am afraid. Therefore two or three days before it expires, which will be the beginning of October, (you will find by the date of the last) take out a new one for another half year; and let the same clause be in (of leave. to go to Great Britain, or elsewhere, for the recovery of his health) for very probably, if this unfortunate event should happen of the loss of our friend (and I have no probability or hopes to expect better) I will go to France, if my health will permit me, to forget myself*. I leave my whole little affairs with you; I hate to think of them. If Mr. Deacon, or alderman Pearson, come to pay rent, take it on account, unless they bring you their last acquittance to direct you. But Deacon owes me seventy-five pounds, and interest, upon his bond; so that you are to take care of giving him any receipt in full of all accounts. I hope you and Mrs. Worrall have your health. I can hold up my head no longer. I am sincerely yours, &c.

You need not trouble yourself to write, till you have business; for it is uncertain where I shall be.

MADAM,

TO MRS. HOWARD.

SEPT. 1727.

THIS cruel disorder of deafness, attended with giddiness, still confines me. I have been debating

* Soon after the date of this letter the dean went to Ireland; and Mrs. Johnson, after languishing about two months, died on the 28th of January, 1727-8, in the 44th year of her age.

with myself, that having a home in Dublin not inconvenient, it would be prudent for me to return thither, while my sickness will allow me to travel. I am therefore setting out for Ireland; and it is one comfort to me, that I am ridding you of a troublesome companion. I am infinitely obliged to you for all your civilities, and shall retain the remembrance of them during my life.

I hope you will favour me so far, as to present my most humble duty to the queen, and to describe to her majesty my sorrow, that my disorder was of such a nature, as to make me incapable of attending her, as she was pleased to permit me. I shall pass the remainder of my life with the utmost gratitude for her majesty's favours.

FROM MR. GAY, AND MR. POPE, TO DR. SWIFT.

OCT. 22, 1727.

THOUGH you went away from us so unexpectedly, and in so clandestine a manner; yet, by several inquiries, we have informed ourselves of every thing that hath happened to you.

To our great joy, you have told us, your deafness left you at the inn in Aldersgate street: no doubt, your ears knew there was nothing worth hearing in England.

Our advices from Chester tell us, that you met captain Lawson*; the captain was a man of veraCommander of the king's Dublin yacht. S

VOL. XII.

city,

city, and set sail at the time he told you; I really wished you had laid hold of that opportunity, for you had then been in Ireland the next day; besides, as it is credibly reported, the captain had a bottle or two of excellent claret in his cabin. You would not then have had the plague of that little smoky room at Holyhead*; but, considering it was there you lost your giddiness, we have great reason to praise smoky rooms for the future, and prescribe them in like cases to our friends. The maid of the house writes us word, that, while you were there, you were busy for ten days together writing continually; and that, as Wat drew nearer and nearer to Ireland, he blundered more and more. By a scrap of paper left in this smoky room, it seemed as if the book you were writing was a most lamentable account of your travels; and really, had there been any wine in the house, the place would not have been so irksome. We were farther told, that you set out, were driven back again by a storm, and lay in the ship all night. After the next setting sail, we were in great concern about you, because the weather grew very tempestuous: when, to my great

* When the dean was there, waiting for a wind, one Weldon, an old seafaring man, sent him a letter, that he had found out the longitude, and would convince him of it; to which the dean answered in writing, that, if he had found it out, he must apply to the lords of the admiralty, of whom perhaps one might be found who knew something of navigation, of which he was totally igno rant; and that he never knew but two projectors, one of whom (meaning his own uncle Godwin) ruined himself and family, and the other hanged himself; and desired him to desist, lest one or other might happen to him. In vol. VII, p. 361, are some ver, ses by the dean, written on the window of the inn whilst he was detained at Holyhead.

joy