Dr. Swift to Lord Bolingbroke-Temper and Amusements of Swift. tricks, I am ignorant; but I believe in your time you would never, as a minister, have suffered an act to pass through the H. of Commons, only because you were sure of a majority in the H. of Lords to throw it out; because it would be unpopular, and consequently a loss of reputation. Yet this we are told hath been the case in the qualification bill relating to pensioners. It should seem to me that corruption, like avarice, hath no bounds. I had opportunities to know the proceedings of your ministry better than any other man of my rank; and having not much to do, I have often compared it with these last sixteen years of a profound peace all over Europe, and we running seven millions in debt. I am forced to play at small game, to set the beasts here a madding, merely for want of better game: Tendanda via est qua me quoque passim, etc. The d― take those politics, where a dunce might govern for a dozen years together. I will come in person to England, if I am provoked, and send for the dictator from the plough. I disdain to say, O mihi præteritosbut cruda deo viridisque senectus. Pray, my lord, how are the gardens? have you taken down the mount, and removed the yew hedges? Have you not bad weather for the spring corn? Has Mr. Pope gone farther in his ethic poem? and is the headland sown with wheat? and what says Polybius? and how does my lord St. John? which last question is very material to me, because I love Burgundy, and riding between Twickenham and Dawley. I built a wall five years ago, and when the masons played the knaves, nothing delighted me so much as to stand by, while my servants threw down what was amiss: I have likewise seen a monkey overthrow all the dishes and plates in a kitchen, merely for the pleasure of seeing them tumble, and hearing the clatter they made in their fall. I wish you would invite me to Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift-The true Philosophy for Old Age. such another entertainment; but you think, as I ought to think, that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would, if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole. I wonder you are not ashamed to let me pine away in this kingdom while you are out of power. I come from looking over the melange above written, and declare it to be a true copy of my present disposition, which must needs please you, since nothing was ever more displeasing to myself. I desire you to present my most humble respects to my lady. V.-THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY FOR OLD AGE. Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift. March 29th, 1730. I have delayed several posts answering your letter of January last, in hopes of being able to speak to you about a project which concerns us both, but me the most, since the success of it would bring us together. It has been a good while in my head, and at my heart: if it can be set a-going, you shall hear more of it. I was ill in the beginning of the winter for near a week, but in no danger either from the nature of my distemper, or from the attendance of three physicians. Since that bilious intermitting fever, I have had, as I had before, better health than the regard I have paid to health deserves. We are both in the decline of life, my dear Dean, and have been some years going down the hill; let us make the passage as smooth as we can. Let us fence against physical evil by care, and the use of those means which experience must have pointed out to us; let us fence against moral evil by philosophy. I renounce the alterna Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift-The true Philosophy for Old Age. tive you propose; but we may, nay (if we will follow nature, and do not work up imagination against her plainest dictates), we shall of course grow every year more indifferent to life, and to the affairs and interests of a system out of which we are soon to go. This is much better than stupidity. The decay of passion strengthens philosophy; for passion may decay and stupidity not succeed. Passions (says Pope, our divine, as you will see one time or other) are the gales of life: let us not complain that they do not blow a storm. What hurt does age do us, in subduing what we toil to subdue all our lives? It is now six in the morning; I recall the time (and am glad it is over) when about this hour I used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, or jaded with business; my head often full of schemes, and my heart as often full of anxiety. Is it a misfortune, think you, that I rise at this hour, refreshed, serene, and calm? that the past, and even the present affairs of life, stand like objects at a distance from me, where I can keep off the disagreeable so as not to be strongly affected by them, and from whence I can draw the others nearer to me? Passions in their force would bring all these, nay, even future contingencies, about my ears at once, and Reason would but ill defend me in the scuffle. I leave Pope to speak for himself, but I must tell you how much my wife is obliged to you. She says she would find strength enough to nurse you if you was here, and yet, God knows, she is extremely weak. The slow fever works under, and mines the constitution; we keep it off sometimes, but still it returns, and makes new breaches before Nature can repair the old ones. I am not ashamed to say to you, that I admire her more every hour of my life. Death is not to her the King of Terrors; she beholds him without the least. When she suf Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift-The true Philosophy for Old Age. fers much, she wishes for him as a deliverer from pain; when life is tolerable, she looks on him with dislike, because he is to separate her from those friends to whom she is more attached than to life itself. You shall not stay for my next, as long as you have done for this letter; and in every one Pope shall write something much better than the scraps of old philosophers, which were the presents, munuscula, that stoical fop Seneca used to send in every epistle to his friend Lucilius. P. S. My Lord has spoken justly of his lady; why not I of my mother? Yesterday was her birthday, now entering on the ninety-first year of her age; her memory much diminished, but her senses very little hurt, her sight and hearing good; she sleeps not ill, eats moderately, drinks water, says her prayers; this is all she does. I have reason to thank God for continuing so long to me a very good and tender parent, and for allowing me to exercise, for some years, those cares which are now as necessary to her as hers have been to me. An object of this sort daily before one's eyes very much softens the mind, but perhaps may hinder it from the willingness of contracting other ties of the like domestic nature, when one finds how painful it is even to enjoy the tender pleasures. I have formerly made some strong efforts to get and to deserve a friend; perhaps it were wiser never to attempt it, but live extempore, and look upon the world only as a place to pass thro', just pay your hosts their due, disperse a little charity, and hurry on. Yet I am just now writing (or rather planning) a book, to make mankind look upon this life with comfort and pleasure, and put mortality in good humor. And just now too, I am going to see one I love very tenderly; and to-morrow to entertain several civil people, whom if we call friends, it is by the courtesy of England-Sic, sic juvat Alexander Pope to Mr. Gay-On his Recovery, and the Death of Congreve. ire sub umbras. While we do live, we must make the best of life, "Cantantes licet usque (minus via lædet) eamus," as the shepherd said in Virgil, when the road was long and heavy. I am yours. VL-ON HIS RECOVERY, AND THE DEATH OF CONGREVE. Alexander Pope to Mr. Gay. I am glad to hear of the progress of your recovery; and the oftener I hear it the better, when it becomes easy to you to give it me. I so well remember the consolation you were to me in my mother's former illness, that it doubles my concern at this time not to be able to be with you, or you able to be with me. Had I lost her, I would have been nowhere else but with you during your confinement. I have now past five weeks without once going from home, and without any company but for three or four of the days. Friends rarely stretch their kindness so far as ten miles. My Lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Bethel have not forgotten to visit me; the rest (except Mrs. Blount once) were contented to send messages. I never passed so melancholy a time, and now Mr. Congreve's death touches me nearly. It was twenty years and more that I have known him. Every year carries away something dear with it, till we outlive all tendernesses, and become wretched individuals again, as we begun. Adieu! This is my birthday, and this is my reflection upon With added days, if life give nothing new, But, like a sieve, let every pleasure thro'; Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er, And all we gain, some sad reflection more! Is this a birthday?-'Tis, alas! too clear, 'Tis but the fun'ral of the former year. it : |