Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/92

84 of most I have known. I suppose Mr. Gay will return from the Bath with twenty pounds more flesh, and two hundred less in money: Providence never designed him to be above two and twenty, by his thoughtlessness and cullibility. He hath as little foresight of age, sickness, poverty, or loss of admirers, as a girl at fifteen. By the way, I must observe, that my lord Bolingbroke (from the effects of his kindness to me) argues most sophistically: the fall from a million to a hundred thousand pounds, is not so great, as from eight hundred pounds a year to one: besides, he is a controller of fortune, and poverty dares not look a great minister in the face, under his lowest declension. I never knew him live so greatly and expensively as he has done since his return from exile; such mortals have resources that others are not able to comprehend. But God bless you, whose great genius has not so transported you as to leave you to the courtesy of mankind; for wealth is a liberty, and liberty is a blessing fittest for a philosopher and Gay is a slave just by two thousand pounds too little. And Horace was of my mind, and let my lord contradict him if he dares.

BATH, NOV. 12, 1728.

HAVE passed six weeks in quest of health, and found it not; but I found the folly of solicitude about