Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/105

Rh comfort do now daily decline, very suitably to my state of health for some months past. For my head is never perfectly free from giddiness, and especially toward night. Yet my disorder is very moderate, and I have been without a fit of deafness this half year; so I am like a horse, which, though off his mettle, can trot on tolerably; and this comparison puts me in mind to add that I am returned to be a rider, wherein I wish you would imitate me. As to this country, there have been three terrible years dearth of corn, and every place strowed with beggars; but dearths are common in better climates, and our evils here lie much deeper. Imagine a nation the two thirds of whose revenues are spent out of it, and who are not permitted to trade with the other third, and where the pride of women will not suffer them to wear their own manufactures, even where they excel what come from abroad: this is the true state of Ireland in a very few words. These evils operate more every day, and the kingdom is absolutely undone, as I have been telling often in print these ten years past.

What I have said requires forgiveness, but I had a mind for once to let you know the state of our affairs, and my reason for being more moved than perhaps becomes a clergyman, and a piece of a philosopher: and perhaps the increase of years and disorders may hope for some allowance to complaints, especially when I may call myself a stranger in a strange land. As to poor Mrs. Pope (if she be still alive) I heartily pity you and pity her: her great piety and virtue will infallibly make her happy in a better life, and her great age has made her fully ripe for Heaven and the grave, and her best friends will most wish her eased of . XIV.