Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/41

Rh to be, or as historians and poets have represented them to ours. That is another pleasure.'

"When we reflect that among his correspondents are to be found the celebrated names of Bolingbroke, Pope, Addison, Gay, Arbuthnot, Prior, archbishop King, Peterborow, Pulteney, Voltaire, &c. we need not wonder that the curiosity of the present times has been so highly gratified by their publication. Nor is there any doubt but that their value will continue to increase with posterity, in proportion to the distance of time, down to the latest period. And even among those correspondents of an inferiour class, the letters will perhaps be found the best patterns in our language, whether of the easy, familiar, or elegant style; in which some of the ladies have distinguished themselves, particularly the duchess of Queensberry and lady Betty Germain. But Swift's own style, in his Epistles, as in every thing else, will always remain unrivalled, until some great original genius like himself shall arise.

"In this collection nothing is more valuable, or has more highly gratified the curiosity of the publick, than his Journal to Stella; as it lets us more into the real character of Swift than all his other writings put together. In this Journal, daily addressed to his bosom friend, every thought as it rises in his mind, and every feeling of his heart, are laid open in all the nakedness of truth. Throughout the whole he is thinking aloud, as if he were conversing with her tête à tête; and out of this as true a portrait may be made of the peculiar features and complexion of his mind, as could be done of his external form, by any artist, to whom he might sit for his picture; Rh