Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/162

150 Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose The names of those blind puppies as of those. Fast by, like Niobe, her children gone, Sits mother Osborne, stupified to stone; And needy Paxton tells the world with tears, These are, ah! no; these were my gazetteers.

Having nothing to tell you of my poetry, I come to what is now my chief care, my health and amusement: the first is better, as to headachs; worse, as to weakness and nerves. The changes of weather affect me much; otherwise I want not spirits, except when indigestions prevail. The mornings are my life; in the evenings I am not dead indeed, but sleep, and am stupid enough. I love reading still, better than conversation: but my eyes fail; and, at the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labour of the past day sufficient to weigh me down. So I hide myself in bed, as a bird in his nest, much about the same time, and rise and chirp the earlier in the morning. I often vary the scene (indeed at every friend's call) from London to Twickenham; or the contrary, to receive them, or be received by them.

Lord Bathurst is still my constant friend, and yours; but his country seat is now always in Gloucestershire, not in this neighbourhood. Mr. Pulteney has no country seat; and in town I see him seldom; but he always asks after you. In the summer I generally ramble for a month to lord Cobham's, the Bath,