Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/88

80 better figure as long as I live. Pray God preserve Mrs. Pope for your sake and ease; I love and esteem her too much to wish it for her own: if I were five and twenty, I would wish to be of her age, to be as secure as she is of a better life. Mrs. P. B. has writ to me, and is one of the best letter writers I know; very good sense, civility and friendship, without any stiffness or constraint. The Dunciad has taken wind here, but if it had not, you are as much known here as in England, and the university-lads will crowd to kiss the hem of your garment. I am grieved to hear that my lord Bolingbroke's ill health forced him to the Bath. Tell me, is not temperance a necessary virtue for great men, since it is the parent of ease and liberty? so necessary for the use and improvement of the mind, and which philosophy allows to be the greatest felicities of life? I believe, had health been given so liberally to you, it would have been better husbanded, without shame to your parts.

DAWLEY, JUNE 28, 1728.

NOW hold the pen for my lord Bolingbroke, who is reading your letter between two haycocks, but his attention is sometimes diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing him in the triumirate between yourself and me: though he says that he doubts he shall