"When prudence can't our ills redrefs, "'Tis patience only makes them lefs;" "'Tis arrant folly to complain "Of what dame nature's laws ordain" When mind and body are at ease They, who have try'd 'em, know the best. I us'd not Apathy — vile cant! From the fame hands that gave the wound Making worse Havock of themselves; 'Twixt Man and Man what ranc'rous ftrife? More ranc'rous ftill-'twixt Man and Wife The ways and means they are pursuing To haften on each other's ruin So num'rous are, that to recite 'em, But should fome Tyrant, mad or drunk, Slaughter Slaughter and famine hand in hand, Stalk o'er the defolated land ! -Ceafe! ceafe! exclaims th' aftonifh'd bird, Thy pupil, friend! enough has heard To filence Sorrow's Difcontent, And make Revenge herself relent, Come let us feek the wonted plain, I'll try to peck a little grain. S. M. ORIGINAL LETTER of SWIFT's. SIR, Feb. 11, 1691. IF any thing made me wonder at your letter, it was your almost inviting me to do fo in the beginning, which indeed grew lefs upon knowing the occafion; fince 'tis what I have heard from more than one in and about Lt, and for the friendship between us, as I fuppofe your's to be real, fo I think it would be proper to imagine mine, until you find any cause to believe it pretended; though I might have fome quarrel at you in three or four lines, which are very ill beftowed in complimenting me, and as to that of my great profpects of making my fortune, on which as your kindnefs only looks on the beft fide, fo my own cold temper, and unconfined humour, is a much greater hindrance than any fear of that which is the fubject of your letter. I fhall fpeak plainly to you, that the very ordinary obfervations I made with going half a mile beyond the univerfity, have taught me experience enough not to think of of marriage, till I fettle my fortune in the world, which I am fure will not be in some years, and even then itself, I am fo hard to please, that I fuppofe I fhall put it off to the other world: how all that fuits with my behaviour to the woman in hand, you may eafily imagine, when you know that there is something in me which must be employed, and when I am alone, turns all, for want of practice, into speculation and thought, infomuch that these feven weeks I have been here, I have writ and burnt, and writ again upon all manner of fubjects, more than perhaps any man in England, and this is it which a person of great honour in Ireland (who was pleased to ftoop fo low as to look into my mind) used to tell me, that my mind was like a conjured fpirit, that would do mifchief if I would not give it employment. It is this humour that makes me fo buy when I am in company, to turn all that way, and fince it commonly ends in talk, whether it be love or common conversation, it is all alike. This is fo common, that I could remember twenty women in my life, to whom I have behaved myself juft the fame way, and I profefs without any other defign than that of entertaining myself when I am very idle, or when fomething goes amifs in my affairs. This I always have done as a man of the world, when I had no defign for any thing grave in it, and what I thought at worst a harmless impertinence; but whenever I begin to take sober refolutions, or, as now, to think of entering into the church, I never found it would be hard to put off this kind of folly at the porch befides, perhaps in fo general a converfation among that fex, I might pretend a little to understand where I am when I am going to choose for a wife; and though the cunning fharper of the town may have a cheat put on him, yet it must be cleanlier carried than this which you think I am a going to top upon myself; and truly if you knew how metaphyfical I am that way, you would little fear I fhould venture on one who has given so much occafion to tongues: for though the people is a lying fort of beaft, (and I think in Lr above all parts that I ever was in) yet they feldom talk without fome glimpse of a reason, which I declare (fo unpardonably jealous I am) to be a fufficient caufe for me to hate any woman any farther than a bare acquaintance. Among all the young gentlemen that I have known, who have ruined themfelves by marrying (which I affure you is a great number) I have made this general rule, that they are either young, raw, and ignorant fcholars, who, for want of knowing company, believe every filk petticoat includes an angel; or elfe thefe have been a fort of honeft young men, who perhaps are too literal in rather marrying than burning, and entail a mifery on them-. felves and pofterity, by an over-acting modefty. I think I am very far excluded from lifting under either of these heads. I confefs I have known one or two men of fense enough, who, inclined to frolics, have married and ruined themselves out of a maggot; but a thousand houfhold thoughts, which always drive matrimony out of my mind whenever it chances to come there, will, I am fure, fright me from that; befides that, I am na turally temperate, and never engaged in the contrary which ufually produces thofe effects. Your hints at particular stories I do not understand, and having never heard them but fo hinted, thought it proper to give you this, to fhew how I thank you for your regard of me, and I hope my carriage will be fo as my friends. need not be ashamed of the name. I fhould not have behaved myself after that manner I did in Lr, if I had not valued my own entertainment beyond the obloquy of a parcel of very wretched fools, which I folemnly pronounce the inhabitants of L- -r to be; and fo I content myself with retaliation. I hope you will will forgive this trouble; and fo, with my fervice to WHY This pleafing theme of praise ? Why raise in CARTER's cheeks a blush By new prefented bays? And shall then modefty, who lends To genius half her grace, Far from the nymph the help'd to deck To after-times to found thy name, Truefhould all praife who by thy works More pens than ever GEORGE addrefs'd, Would hail thee verfe's queen, VOL. I. R Shall |