have been published since. I wanted no kind of materials. I knew your father better than you could at that time; and I do impartially think him the most virtuous minister and the most able that I ever remembered to have read of. If your lordship has any particular circumstances that may fortify what I have said in the history, such as letters or materials, I am content they should be printed at the end by way of appendix. I loved my lord your father better than any other man in the world, although I had no obligation to him on the score of preferment; having been driven to this wretched kingdom, to which I was almost a stranger, by his want of power to keep me in what I ought to call my own country, although I happened to be dropped here, and was a year old before I left it; and, to my sorrow, did not die before I came back to it again. I am extremely glad of the felicity you have in your alliance; and desire to present my most humble respects to my lady Oxford and your daughter the duchess. As to the history, it is only of affairs which I know very well, and had all the advantages possible to know, when you were in some sort but a lad. One great design of it is, to do justice to the ministry at that time, and to refute all the objections against them, as if they had a design of bringing in popery and the pretender: and further to demonstrate that the present settlement of the crown was chiefly owing to my lord your father. I can never expect to see England: I am now too old and too sickly, added to almost a perpetual deafness and giddiness. I live a most domestic life: I want nothing that is necessary; but I am in a cursed, factious, oppressed, miserable country; not made so by nature, but by the slavish, hellish principles of an execrable prevailing faction in it. Farewell, my lord. I have tired you and myself. I desire again to present my most humble respects to my lady Oxford and the duchess your daughter. Pray God preserve you long and happy! I shall diligently inquire into your conduct from those who will tell me. You have hitherto continued right: let me hear that you persevere so. Your task will not be long; for I am not in a condition of health or time to trouble this world, and I am heartily weary of it already; and so should be in England, which I hear is full as corrupt as this poor enslaved country. I am, with the truest love and respect, my lord, your lordship's most obedient and most obliged, &c. JONATHAN SWIFT. CXI. Dr. John Arbuthnot, Physician in ordinary to Queen Anne, and one of the most accomplished wits of our Augustan age, was born 1667. He was the intimate friend of Pope, Swift, and Bolingbroke, and was fortunate in attaining the double reputation of eminence in a professional career, and a place of distinction among contemporary writers and wits. He contributed his share of those squibs and political tracts which marked the parliamentary party-warfare of the last years of Queen Anne's reign. Dr. Arbuthnot to Dean Swift. Hampstead: October 4, 1734. My Dear and Worthy Friend,-You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends; for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health: the last I sent a great while ago by one De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart toward you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world; and you among the rest of my friends shall have my last prayers and good wishes. The young man whom you recommended came to this place, and I promised to do him what service my ill state of health would permit. I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years, because of bloody water) I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again; but I expect the return of my symptoms upon my return to London, and the return of the winter. I am not in circumstances to live an idle country life; and no man at my age ever recovered of such a disease further than by an abatement of the symptoms. What I did I can assure you was not for life but ease. For I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea; who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family, and from the kind ness of my friends, as any man, but the world, in the main, displeases me; and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are likely to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frighted from a journey to England. The reasons you assign are not sufficient; the journey I am sure would do you good. In general I recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience. My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock; and the trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper, to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from that way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none can be with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant, CXII. J. ARBUTHNOT. Steele's second wife was a Miss Mary Scurlock, of Llangunnor, a lady of considerable wealth and of fascinating presence; she received his advances at first with coldness, yet only a month elapsed between his proposal and their marriage, which occurred about eight days after the composition of the following pretty letter. Richard Steele to Mary Scurlock. September 1, 1707. It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend to business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. A gentleman asked me this morning, 'What news from Lisbon?' and I answered, 'She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know when I had been las at Hampton Court. I replied, 'I will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee, allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. O love! A thousand torments dwell about thee! Yet who would live to live without thee? Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, I am ever yours, RICH. STEELE. CXIII. It need scarcely be stated that Isaac Bickerstaffe was the nom de plume of Sir Richard Steele while he was writing for the 'Tatler.' Sir Richard Steele to the Earl of Halifax. (Inclosing Mr. Bickerstaffe's proposal for a subscription.) My Lord, I presume to enclose to your lordship Mr. Bickerstaffe's proposall for a subscription, and ask your lordship's favour in promoting it, having that philosopher's interest at heart as much as my own, and am, indeed, confident I am the greatest admirer he has. The best argument I have for this partiality is, that my Lord Halifax has smiled upon his labours. If any whom your Lordship recommends shall think fitt to subscribe more than the sum proposed for a Book, it may be said that it is for so many more books. This will make the favour more gracefull by being confer'd in an oblique way, and at the same time save the confusion of the Squire, whom I know to be naturally proud. I am, my Lord, your Lordship's most obliged most obedient humble servant RICH. STEELE. CXIV. Coleridge has warmly commended the letters of Steele to his second wife as 'models of their kind.' They are brief and artless, full of a sensitive ardour in demanding reciprocity of affection, and singularly unaffected in style. Lady Steele died before her husband in 1718; she has been blamed for being so much absent from home, yet it is to this circumstance that we owe the priceless correspondence which she preserved. Sir Richard Steele to Lady Steele. June 20, 1717. Dear Prue,-I have yours of the 14th, and am infinitely obliged to you for the length of it. I do not know another whom I could commend for that circumstance; but where we entirely love, the continuance of anything they do to please us is a pleasure. As for your relations, once for all, pray take it for granted, that my regard and conduct towards all and singular of them shall be as you direct. I hope, by the grace of God to continue what you wish me, every way an honest man. My wife and my children are the objects that have wholly taken up my heart; and as I am not invited or encouraged in anything which regards the public, I am easy under that neglect or envy of my past actions, and cheerfully contract that diffusive spirit within the interests of my own family. You are the head of us and I stooped to a female reign as being naturally made the slave of beauty. But to prepare for our manner of living when we are again together, give me leave to say, while I am here at leisure, and come to lie at Chelsea, what I think may contribute to our better way of living. I very much approve Mrs. Evans and her husband and if you take my advice, I would have them have a being in our house, and Mrs. Clark the care and inspection of the nursery. I would have you entirely at leisure to pass your time with me in diversions, in books, in entertainments, and no manner of business intrude upon us but at stated times. For, though you are made to be the delight of my eyes, and food of all my senses and faculties, yet a turn of care and housewifery, and I know not what prepossession against conversation-pleasures, robs me of the witty and the handsome woman |