you to speak of a halter, in a family where one of it was hanged? And your innocence is a protection that wife men are ashamed to rely on, further than with God. It is indeed against common fenfe, to think, that you fhould chufe fuch a time, when you had received a favour from the Lord Lieutenant, and had reason to expect more, to difcover your disloyalty in the pulpit. But what will that avail? Therefore fit down and be quiet, and mind your business as you should do, and contract your friendfhips, and expect no more from man than fuch an animal is capable of; and you will every day find my defcription of Yahoos more refembling. You fhould think and deal with every man as a villain, without calling him fo, or flying from him, or valuing him less. This is an old true leffon. You believe every one will acquit you of any regard to temporal interest; and how came you to claim an exception from all mankind? I believe you value your temporal intereft as much as any body, but you have not the arts of pursuing it. You are miftaken. Domeftic evils are no more within a man than others; and he who cannot bear up against the first, will fink under the fecond; and, in my confcience, I believe this is your cafe; for being of a weak conftitution, in an employment precarious and tiresome, loaden with children, cum uxore neque leni neque commoda, a man of intent and abftracted thinking, inflaved by mathematics and complaint of the world, this new weight of party malice hath ftruck you down, like a feather on a horfe's back, already loaden as far as he is able to bear. You ought to change the apoftle's expreffion, and say, I will ftrive to learn in whatever ftate, &c.

I will bear none of your vifions; you fhall live at Quilca but three fortnights and a month in the year; perhaps not fo much. You fhall make no entertainments but what are neceffary to your interefts; for your true friends would rather fee you over a piece of mutton and a bottle once a quarter. You fhall be merry at the expence of others; you fhall take care of your health, and go early to bed, and not read late at night; and laugh with all men, without trufting any; and then a fig for the contrivers of your ruin, who now have no further thoughts than to ftop your progress, which perhaps

haps they may not compafs, unless I am deceived more than is ufual. All this you will do, fi mihi credis, and not dream of printing your fermon, which is a project abounding with objections unanswerable, and with which I could fill this letter. You fay nothing of having preached before the Lord Lieutenant, nor whether he is altered towards you; for you speak nothing but generals. You think all the world has now nothing to do, but to pull Mr Sheridan down; whereas it is nothing but a flap in your turn, and away. Lord Oxford faid once to me on an occafion, Thefe fools, because they hear a noise about their ears of their own making, think the whole world is full of it. When I come to town, we will change all this scene, and act like men of the world. Grow rich, and you will have no enemies. Go fometimes to the castle; keep faft Mr Tickell and Balaguer*; frequent thofe on the right fide, friends to the prefent powers; drop those who are loud on the wrong party, because they know they can fuffer nothing by it.

W

LETTER CXII.

Dr SWIFT to Dr SHERIDAN.

Quilca, Sept. 19. 1725. E have prevailed with Neal, in fpite of his har veft, to carry up Mifs, with your directions; and it is high time, for fhe was run almost wild, though we have fomething civilized her fince fhe came among us. You are too fhort in circumftances. I did not hear you was forbid preaching. Have you feen my Lord? Who forbad you to preach? Are you no longer chaplain ? Do you never go to the caftle? Are you certain of the accufer, that it is Tigh? Do you think my Lord acts thus, because he fears it would breed ill humour, if he fhould openly favour one who is looked on as of a different party? I think that is too mean for him. I do not much disapprove your letter, but I think it a wrong

Private Secretary to his Excellency the Lord Carteret, Lord-Lieu. tenant of Ireland. Dub. Edit.

method.

method. Pray read over the inclofed twice; and if you do not dislike it, let it be fent (not by a fervant of yours, nor from you) to Mr Tickell. There the cafe is ftated as well as I could do it in generals, for want of knowing particulars. When I come to town, I shall see the Lord Lieutenant, and be as free with him as poffible. In the mean time, I believe it may keep cold; however advise with Mr Tickell, and Mr Balaguer. I should fancy that the Bishop of Limerick could easily fatisfy his Excellency, and that my Lord Lieutenant believes no more of your guilt than I; and therefore it can be nothing but to fatisfy the noife of party at this juncture that he acts as he does; and if so, (as I am confident it is), the effect will ceafe with the caufe. But, without doubt, Tigh and others have dinned the words Tory and Jacobite into his Excellency's ears, and therefore your text, &c. was only made ufe of as an opportunity.

Upon the whole matter, you are no lofer, but at least have got fomething. Therefore be not like him who hanged himself, because, going into a gaming house, and winning ten thousand pounds, he loft five thousand of it, and came away with only half his winnings. When my Lord is in London, we may clear a way to him to do you another job, and you are young enough

to wait.

We fet out to Dublin on Monday the 5th of Octo ber, and hope to fup at the deanery the next night; where you will come to us, if you are not already engaged.

I am grown a bad bailiff towards the end of my fervice. Your hay is well brought in, and better stacked than ufual. All here are well.

I know not what you mean by my having fome sport foon ; I hope it is no sport that will vex me. Pray do not forget to feal the inclofed before you fend it.

I fend

you back your letter to the Lord Lieutenant.

Dr William Burfcow.

LET

LETTER

CXIII.

Dr SWIFT to Dr SHERIDAN.

Quilca, Sept. 25. 1725.

Our confufion hindered you from giving any ration.

You

al account of your diftrefs, till this laft letter; and therein you are imperfect enough. However, with much ado we have now a tolerable understanding how things ftand. We had a paper fent inclofed, fubfcribed by Mr Ford, as we fuppofe: it is in print, and we all approve it; and this I fuppofe is the fport I was to expect. I do think it is agreed, that all animals fight with the weapons natural to them, (which is a new and wife remark out of my own head); and the devil take that animal who will not offend his enemy, when he is provoked, with his proper weapon; and though your old dull horfe little values the blows I give him with the butt end of my flick, yet I ftrike on, and make him wince in fpite of his dulnefs; and he fhall not fail of them while I am here; and I hope you will do fo too to the beast who has kicked against you, and try how far his infenfibility will protect him; and you fhall have help, and he will be vexed; for fo I found your horfe this day, though he would not move the fafter. I will kill that flea or loufe which bites me, though I get no honour by it.

Laudari ab iis, quos omnes laudant, is a maxim; and the contrary is equally true. Thank you for the offer of your mare; and how a pox could we come without her? They pulled off her's and your horfe's fhoes for fear of being rode, and then they rode them without fhoes, and fo I was forced to fhoe them again. All the fellows here would be Tighs, if they were but privy counsellors. You will never be at ease for your friends horfes or your own, till you have walled in a park of twenty acres, which I would have done next fpring.

You fay not a word of the letter I fent you for Mr Tickell, whether you fent it him or no ; and yet it was

very material that I fhould know it. The two devils of inadvertency and forgetfulness have got faft hold on you. I think you need not quit his and Balaguer's company, for the reafon I mentioned in that letter; becaufe they are above fufpicions, as whiggissimi and unfuSpeciffimi. When the Lord Lieutenant goes for Eng. land, I have a method to fet you right with him, I hope; as I will tell you when I come to town, if I do not Sheridan it, I mean forget it.

I did a Sheridanism; I told you I had loft your letter inclofed, which you intended to Lord Carteret, and yet I have it fafe here.

An anfwer to Lord PALMERSTON's civil polite letter. [So indorfed.]

I

My LORD,

Jan. 31. 1725-6. Defire you will give yourself the laft trouble 1 fhall ever put you to. I do entirely acquit you of any injury or injuftice done to Mr Curtis *; and if you had read that paffage in my letter a fecond time, you could not poffibly have fo ill understood me. The injury and injustice the young man received were from thofe who, claiming a title to his chambers, took away his key; and reviled, and threatened to beat him; with a great deal of the like monftrous conduct; whereupon, at his request, I laid the cafe before you t, as it appeared to me. And it would have been very ftrange, if on account of a trifle, and of a person for whom I have no concern further than as he was once employed by me, on the character he bears of piety and learning, I fhould charge you with injury and injuftice to him, when I

A refident master in Trinity college, whom the Dean made one of the four minor canons of St Patrick's cathedral. Dub. Edit.

† Lord Viscount Palmerston (nephew to Sir William Temple) hath a right to beftow two handsome chambers in the university of Dublin upon fuch ftudents as he and his heirs fhall think proper, on account of the benefactions of this family towards the college-buildings. Dub. edit.

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