To Mr. Gay and the Duchess of Queensberry... 73 To the Countess of Suffolk.......... A Counterfeit Letter to the Queen....... ...... 109 To Mr. Gay and the Duchess of Queensberry 110 LETTERS TO AND FROM DR. SWIFT. SIR, TO THE REV. MR. WALLIS. Market Hill, Nov. 16, 1728. I AM extremely obliged to you for your kind intention in the purchase you mention; but it will not answer my design, because these lands are let in leases renewable for ever t, and consequently can never have the rent raised; which is mortal to all estates left for ever to a public use, and is contrary to a fundamental maxim of mine; and most corporations feel the smart of it. I have been here several months, to amuse me in my disorders of giddiness and deafness, of which I have frequent returns-and I shall hardly return to Dublin till Christmas. I am truly grieved at your great loss. Such misfortunes seem to break the whole scheme of man's *The seat of sir Arthur Acheson, where the Dean passed two summers. He had a farm near it, which was let to him by sir Arthur, and afterwards called Drapier's hill, apparently from the poem, while Swift tenanted it. F. Accordingly, in his will, by which he devised his fortune to the building and endowing of an hospital for lunatics, he restrained his executors from purchasing any lands that "were encumbered with leases for lives renewable." F. life*; and although time may lessen sorrow, yet it cannot hinder a man from feeling the want of so near a companion, nor hardly supply it with another t. I wish you health and happiness, and that the pledge left you may prove a comfort. I am, with great sincerity, your most obliged and most humble ser vant, DEAR SIR, JON. SWIFT., FROM MR. GAY. London, Dec. 2, 1728. I THINK this is my fourth letter, I am sure it is the third, without any answer. If I had any assurance of your health, I should have been more easy. I should have writ to you upon this subject above a month ago, had it not been for a report that you were upon the road in your way to England: which I fear now was without foundation. Your money, with part of my own, is still in the hands of lord Bathurst, which I believe he will keep no longer, but repay upon his coming to town; when I will endeavour to dispose of it as I do of my own, unless I receive your orders to the contrary. Lord and lady *Mr. Pope has so poetically expressed this idea, that I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing it: "I am sensibly obliged to you, in the comfort you endeavour to give me upon the loss of a friend. It is like the shower we have had this morning, that just makes the drooping trees hold up their heads, but they remain checked and withered at the root: the benediction is but a short relief, though it comes from Heaven itself. The loss of a friend is the loss of life; after that is gone from us, it is all but a gentle decay, and wasting and lingering a little longer.' Letters to a Lady, p. 23. N. This sentiment, no doubt, came from the writer's heart. Stella, the incomparable Stella, was then no more! N. A son, afterwards a barrister at law. F. |