the Greenlanders; it is fome confolation to a benevolent reader, that

"What happier natures fhrink at with affright, "The hard inhabitant contends is right."

POPE.

Letters written by the late Jonathan Swift, D. D. Dean of St. Patricks, Dublin, and feveral of bis friends, from the year 1703, to 1740; published from the originals, with notes explanatory and hiftorical, by John Hawkefworth,

L.L. D.

WE

E cannot give a better general account of this work, or its ufe, than in the words of the editor.

The letters here offered to the public, fays he, were a present from the late Dr. Swift to Dr. Lyon, a clergyman of Ireland, for whom he had a great regard; they were obtained of Dr. Lyon, by Mr. Thomas Wilkes of Dublin, and of Mr. Wilkes by the bookfellers for whom they are published.

They are indifputably genuine: the original, in the hand-writing of the parties, or copies indorfed by the Dean, being depofited in the British Museum; except of those in the appendix mentioned to have

come to the proprietors hands after the rest were printed, the originals of which are in the hands of a gentleman of great eminence in the law in Ireland.

They are all written by perfons eminent for their abilities, many of whom were alfo eminent for their rank; the greater part are the genuine effufions of the heart, in the full confidence of the moft intimate friendship, without referve, and without difguife. Such in particular are the letters between the Dean and Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Dingley, Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Gay.

They relate many particulars, that would not otherwife have been known, relative to fome of the most interesting events that have happened in this century: they abound also with strains of humour, turns of wit, and refined fentiment: they are all frongly characteristic, and enable the reader to catch the manners living as they rife." Thofe from the Dean to Mrs. Johnfon and Mrs. Dingley, are part of the journal mentioned in his lite*, and from them alone a better notion may be formed of his manner and character than from all that has been written about him.

But this collection must not be confidered as affording only entertainment to the idle, or fpecu

Hawkefworth's Life of Swift.

lative

lative knowledge to the curious; it moft forcibly impreffes a fenfe of the vanity and the brevity of life, which the moralift and the divine have always thought an important purpose, but which mere declamation can feldom attain.

In a series of familiar letters between the fame friends for thirty years, their whole life, as it were, paffes in review before us; we live with them, we hear them talk, we mark the vigour of life, the ardour of expectation, the hurry of bufinefs, the jollity of their focial meetings, and the fport of their fancy in the fweet intervals of leifure and retirement; we fee the fcene gradually change; hope and expectation are at an end; they regret pleasures that are paft, and friends that are dead; they complain of disappointment and infirmity; they are conscious that the fands of life which remain are few; and while we hear them regret the approach of the laft, it falls, and we lose them in the grave. Such as they were, we feel ourfelves to be we are confcious to fentiments, connections, and fituations like theirs: we find ourselves in the fame path, urged forward by the fame neceffity; and the parallel in what has been, is carried on with fuch force to what shall be, that the future almoft becomes prefent, and we wonder at the new power of thofe truths, of which we never doubted the reality and importance.

Thefe lettets will, therefore, contribute to whatever good may be hoped from a juft eftimate of life; and for that reason, if for no other, are by no means unworthy the attention of the public.

my own act, nor at my own op"tion, but the act of those to whom "they had been fold for that pur "pofe, before I knew they had a being."

Of the collection, confidered as an whole, there can be no epitome, and it is difficult to felect an extract a fingle letter can no more be confidered as a specimen, than a fingle brick can be confidered as the fample of an houfe: there is however an event, the publication of Lord Bolingbroke's pofthumous works, that fuch an extract, as it comes within the bounds of this mifcellany, will perfectly include. It is an event of fome importance, as by fhewing that the enemies of Chriftianity are not honeft, upon their own principles, it will proportionably leffen their authority, and render their profes fions fufpected. On this confideration, we have felected the following letters and note.

my life. Should I anfwer you in a month, you might think your felf obliged to anfwer me in fix; and, fcared at the fore fatigue of writing twice a year to an abfent friend, you might (for aught either you or I can tell) ftop short, and not write at all. Now, this would difappoint all my projects; for, to confefs the truth, I have been drawing you in these several years, and by my paft fuccefs, I begin to hope, that in about ten more, I may establish a right of hearing from you once a quarter. The gout neither clears my head, nor warms my imagination, and I am ashamed to own to you, how near the truth I kept in the defcription of what paffed by my bedfide in the reading of your letter. The fcene was really fuch as I painted it; and the company was much better than you seem to think it. When I, who pass a great part, very much the greateft, of my life alone, fally forth into the world, I am very far from expecting to improve myfelf by the converfation I find there; and ftill farther from caring one jot of what paffes there. In fhort, I am no longer the bubble you knew me; and therefore, when I mingle in fociety, it is purely for my amufement. If mankind divert me (and I defy them to give me your diftemper, the spleen), it is all I expect or afk of them. By this fincere confeffion you may perceive, that your great mafters of reafon are not for my turn; their tho rough bafs benumbs my faculties.

VOL. IX.

I feek the fiddle or the flute, fomething to raife, or fomething to calm my fpirits agreeably; gay flights, or foothing images. I do not diflike a fellow, whofe imagi. nation runs away with him, and who has wit enough to be halfmad; nor him, who atones for a fcanty imagination by an ample fund of oddneffes and fingularity. If good fenfe and great knowledge prevail a little too much in any character, I defire there may be at least fome latent ridicule, which may be called forth upon occafion, and render the perfon a tolerable companion. By this sketch you may judge of my acquaintance. The dead friends, with whom I pafs my time, you know. The living ones are of the fame fort, and therefore few.

I pass over that part of your letter, which is a kind of an elegy on a departed minifter*; and I promise you folemnly neither to mention him, nor think of him more, till I come to do him justice in an hiftory of the firft twenty years of this century, which I be, lieve I fhall write, if I live three or four years longer. But I muft take a little more notice of the para. graph which follows. The verses I fend you are very bad, because they are not very good: Mediocribus effe poetis non dii, non homines, &c. I did not fend them to be admired; and you would do them too much honour, if you criticized them. Pope took the best party; for he faid not one word to me about them. All I defire of you is to

confider

confider them as a proof, that you have never been out of my thoughts, though you have been fo long out of my fight; and, if I remember you upon paper for the future, it hall be in profe.

I muft, on this occafion, fet you right, as to an opinion, which I should be very forry to have you entertain concerning me. The term efprit fort, in English, freethinker, is, according to my obtervation, ufually applied to them, whom I look upon to be the pefts of fociety; because their endeavours are directed to loofen the bands of it; and to take at leaft one curb out of the mouth of that wild beaft man, when it would be well if he was checked by half a fcore others. Nay, they go far. ther. Revealed religion is a lofty and pompous ftructure, erected clofe to the humble and plain building of natural religion. Some have objected to you, who are the architects et les concierges (we want that word in English) of the former, to you who build, or at leaft repair the houfe, and who fhew the rooms, that, to strengthen fome parts of your own building, you shake and even fap the foundation of the other. And be. tween you and I, Mr. Dean, this charge may be juftified in feveral instances; but fill your intention is not to demolish: whereas the efprit fort, or the free-thinker, is fo fet upon pulling down your houfe about your ears, that if he was let alone, he would destroy the other for being fo near it, and mingle both in one common ruin. I therefore not only difown, but deteft this character. If indeed by

efprit fort, or free-thinker, you only mean a man, who makes a free ufe of his reason, who searches after truth without paffion or prejudice, and adheres inviolably to it, you mean a wife and honeft man, and fuch an one as I labour to be. The faculty of diftinguith-. ing between right and wrong, true and falfe, which we call reason, or common fenfe, which is given to every man by our bountiful Creator, and which moft men lofe by neglect, is the light of the mind, and ought to guide all operations of it. To abandon this rule, and to guide our thoughts by any other, is full as abfurd, as it would be, if you fhould put out your eyes, and borrow even the beit ftaff, that ever was in the family of the ftaffs, when you set out upon one of your dirty jour nies. Such free-thinkers as these I am fure you cannot, even in your apoftolical capacity, difapprove: for fince the truth of the divine revelation of Chriftianity is as evident, as matters of fact, on the belief of which fo much depends, ought to be, and agreeable to all our ideas of justice, these freethinkers muft needs be Chriftians on the best foundation; on that which St. Paul himself established, I think it was St. Paul; Omnia probate: quod bonum eft, tenete.

But you have a further fecurity from these free-thinkers, I do not fay a better, and it is this: the perfons I am defcribing think for themfelves, and to themselves. Should they unhappily not be convinced by your arguments, yet they will certainly think it their duty not to difturb the peace of

the