must not end so. I think you should find out some moral topic, or reflection, or compliment, to Lord Dorset for your conclusion, and lay out your whole strength upon a poem which I foresee will be a very shining one. You will easily find some subject to launch out upon, and if it has any correspondence with the climate, as the poetry of that country, the language, the difference of manners in the people, or the like, so much the better. You see I cannot hinder the impertinence of a friend from breaking out when there is no occasion for it. I must beg my most humble and hearty respects to Mr. Pulteney. I will write to him a length as soon as I get to Ireland. In the mean time you may let him know that it was no small pleasure to me in my new post that the first thing I did in it was to forward à business which had a relation to him. Mr. Spanheim, in conjunction with the rest of the foreign ministry, gave in their thoughts relating to the Privilege Act. They chiefly corcerned their domestics as I am informed, and have produced a clause that they shall be free from impressment and arrests, provided the foreign ministers send a list of their domestics' names from time to time into the secretary's office, by them to be transmitted to the sheriffs. It was also to be enacted, that all disputes of this nature should be referred to the Lord Chancellor and Lords Justices, but this Monsieur Spanheim objected to, and desired they might come under the jurisdiction of the Secretaries of State, who may be the most proper judges of the laws of nations. I am, very abruptly, but Endorsed by Ambrose Phillips, Resp. May 25. and Savage, which may not inappropriately be introduced here. "These three celebrated characters, after spending an evening together at a tavern in Gerrard Street, Soho, sallied out some time after midnight, in high glee and spirits. They were accosted by a tradesman, at the top of Hedge Lane, who, after begging their pardon for addressing them on the subject, told them, that' at the top of the lane he had seen two or three suspicious looking fellows, who appeared to be bailiffs, so that if any of them were apprehensive of danger, he would advise them to take a different route.' "Not one of them waited to thank the man, but flew off different ways; cach conscious, from the embarrassment of his own affairs, that such a circumstance was very likely to happen to himself.” Addisoniana. DEAR SIR, ADDISON TO SWIFT. Dublin, April 22nd, 1709. I am in a very great hurry of business, but cannot fɔrbear thanking you for your letter at Chester, which was the only entertainment I met with in that place. I hope to see you very suddenly, and will wait on our friend the Bishop of Clogher, as soon as I can possibly. I have had just time to tell him en passant, that you were well. I long to see you; and am, Dear sir, Your most faithful and most obedient servant, We arrived yesterday at Dublin. ADDISON TO THE EARL OF HALIFAX.2 MY LORD, Dublin Castle, May 7th, 1709. I am glad of any occasion of paying my duty to your Lordship, and therefore cannot but lay hold of this, in transmitting to your Lordship our Lord-Lieutenant's speech at the opening of the parliament with a couple of addresses from the House of Commons upon that occasion. Your Lordship will see by them that all parties here set out in good humour, which is entirely owing to his Excellency's conduct, who has addressed himself to all sorts of men, since his arrival here, with unspeakable application. They were under great apprehensions, at his first coming, that he would 1 Dr. St. George Ashe, Bp. of Clogher in 1697, translated to Derry in 1717, in which year he married Dean Swift to Mrs. Johnson. Both he and his brother, the Rev. Dillon Ashe, were celebrated punsters. 2 Macky says of him, "He is a gentleman of great natural parts, learning, and dexterity in business; one of the fittest ministers in the world to help a prince through a war, having a very projecting head. His quick rise made him haughty, and by some thought violent; and, what helped to pull him down, he could not endure an equal in business. My Lord Sunderland helped to establish him with the king, and he endeavouring afterwards to throw his Lordship out of the administration, made that Lord join to trip up his heels.-"He is a great encourager of learning and learned men, is the patron of the Muses, of very agreeable conversation, a short, fair man, not forty years old." To which Swift adds, "His encouragements were only good words and dinners. I never heard him say one good thing, or seem to taste what was said by another." • Lord Wharton. drive directly at repealing the test, and had formed themselves into a very strong body for its defence; but as their minds are at present pretty quiet upon that head, they ap pear willing to enter into all other measures that he would have them. Had he proceeded otherwise, it is easy to see that all things would have been thrown into the utmost confusion, and a stop put to all public business. His Excellency however gains ground daily, and I question not but in a new parliament, where parties are not settled and confirmed, he will be able to lead them into anything that will be for their real interest and advantage. I have the happiness every day to drink your Lordship's health in very good wine and with very honest gentlemen, and am ever with the greatest respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient J. ADDISON. DEAR SIR, ADDISON TO SWIFT. Dublin Castle, June 25th, 1709. I am heartily glad to hear you are so near us. If you will deliver the enclosed to the captain of the Wolf, I dare say he will accommodate you with all in his power. If he has left Chester, I have sent you a bill according to the Bishop of Clogher's desire, of whom I have a thousand good things to say. I do not ask your excuse about the yacht, because I do not want it, as you shall hear at Dublin : if I did, I should think myself inexcusable. I long to talk over all affairs with you; and am ever, Dear sir, J. ADDISON. P. S. The yacht will come over with the acts of parliament and a convoy about a week hence, which opportunity you may lay hold of, if you do not like the Wolf. I will give orders accordingly. 1 Addison's habitual taciturnity and fondness for the bottle are well known. There is a story, not yet forgotten, that the profligate Duke of Wharton once at table plied Addison so briskly with wine, in order to make him talk, that he could not retain it in his stomach. His Grace is said to have observed, that "he could get wine but not wit out of him." ADDISON TO SWIFT. [Dublin,] 9 o'clock, Monday morning, [July, 1709.] DEAR SIR, I think it very hard I should be in the same kingdom with Dr. Swift, and not have the happiness of his company once in three days. The Bishop of Clogher intends to call on you this morning, as will your humble servant on my return from Chapel-Izzard, whither I am just now going. Your humble servant, J. ADDISON. SIR, THE EARL OF HALIFAX TO SWIFT. [London,] October 6, 1709. Our friend Mr. Addison telling me that he was to write to you_to-night, I could not let his packet go away without telling you how much I am concerned to find them returned without you. I am quite ashamed for myself and my friends, to see you left in a place so incapable of tasting you; and to see so much merit and so great qualities unrewarded by those who are sensible of them. Mr. Addison and I are entered into a new confederacy never to give over the pursuit, nor to cease reminding those who can serve you, till your worth is placed in that light it ought to shine in. Dr. South holds out still, but he cannot be immortal. The situation of his prebend would make me doubly concerned in serving you; and upon all occasions that shall offer, I will be your constant solicitor, your sincere admirer, and your unalterable friend. I am your most humble And obedient servant, HALIFAX.2 1 The Addisoniana has "My friend," but gives no authority for the variation, which in the MS. is " our." 2 This letter from Lord Halifax, the celebrated and almost professed patron of learning, is a curiosity in its way, being a perfect model of a courtier's correspondence with a man of letters-condescending, obliging, and probably utterly unmeaning. On the back of the letter Dr. Swift wrote, "I kept this letter as a true original of courtiers and courtpromises," and, in the first leaf of a small printed book, entitled, "Poesies Chretiennes de Mons. Jollivet," he wrote these words; "Given me by my Lord Halifax, May 3, 1709. I begged it of him, and desired him to remember it was the only favour I ever received from him or his party." -A fac-simile of part of this letter is in Smith's Literary Curiosities, 4to, Bohn. DEAR SIR, SIR RICHARD STEELE TO SWIFT. Lord Sunderland's Office, Oct. 8, 1709. Mr. Secretary Addison went this morning out of town, and left behind him an agreeable command for me: viz. to forward the enclosed,' which Lord Halifax sent him for you. I assure you no man could say more in praise of another, than he did in your behalf at that noble Lord's table on Wednesday last. I doubt not but you will find by the enclosed the effect it had upon him. No opportunity is omitted among powerful men, to upbraid them for your stay in Ireland. The company that day at dinner were, Lord Edward Russel, Lord Essex, Mr. Maynwaring, Mr. Addison, and myself. I have heard such things said of that same bishop of Clogher with you, that I have often said he must be entered ad eundem in our House of Lords. Mr. Philips dined with me yesterday; he is still a shepherd, and walks very lonely through this unthinking crowd in London. I wonder you do not write sometimes to me. 2 The town is in great expectation from Bickerstaffe, what passed at the election for his first table, being to be published this day se'nnight. I have not seen Ben Tooke a great while, but long to usher you and yours into the world. Not that there can be anything added by me to your fame, but to walk bare-headed before you. I am, sir, your most obedient DEAR SIR, ADDISON TO AMBROSE PHILLIPS. London, March 10th, [1710?] By a letter that I received from you about a week ago, I find that one I left for you at Harwich to be put into the packet did not come to your hands. I told you in it that your two Pastorals, with the translation of an Ŏde out of Horace by myself, did not come soon enough to be inserted in Tonson's last Miscellany, which was published some time before I came to England. Your first Pastoral is very much 1 Referring to the preceding letter. ? The name affixed by Steele to his papers in the Tatler, of which Swift wrote Nos. 66, 67, 74, and 81. 3 He alludes to the choosing of the worthies for the "Table of Fame;" an allegory which appeared in the Tatler, No. 76. The paper was written by Steele and Addison, but from its being mentioned here, it seems probable Swift had some hand in its original concoction; and, accordingly, it has always made a part of his works. 4 Swift's bookseller. |