The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From John Arbuthnot to Jonathan Swift - 9

by John Arbuthnot

FROM THE SAME.

FOR SO I had called you before, were it not for a certain reverence I pay to deans. I find you wish both me and yourself to live to be old and rich. The second goes in course along with the first; but you cannot give seven (that is the tithe of seventy) good reasons for either. Glad at my heart should I be, if Dr. Helsham^[1] or I could do you any good. My service to Dr. Helsham; he does not want my advice in the case. I. have done good lately to a patient and a friend in that complaint of a vertigo, by cinnabar of antimony and castor, made up into boluses with confect. of alkermes. I had no great opinion of the cinnabar; but trying it amongst other things, my friend found good of this prescription. I had tried the castor alone before, not with so much success. Small quantities of tinctura sacra, now and then, will do you good. There are twenty lords, I believe, would send you horses, if they knew how. One or two have offered to me, who, I believe, would be as good as their word. Mr. Rowe, the poet laureat, is dead, and has left a damned jade of a Pegasus. I will answer for it, he will not do as your mare did, having more need of Lucan's present, than sir Richard Blackmore. I would fain have Pope get a patent for life for the place, with a power of putting in Durfey his deputy. I sent for the two Rosingraves, and examined the matter of fact. The younger had no concern in the note of 20l. The elder says, that he thought the 20l. due to him, for the pains and some expense he had been at about the young fellow; and his master Bethel, who had given Mr. Rosingrave the elder ten guineas before, thought the same reasonable. He says, he did not take it by way of bribe, but as his due; and did never intend to make use of it but when the young fellow was in circumstances to pay him. The younger Rosingrave was begged and intreated both by Bethel and the young fellow (who would not go without him) to accompany him to Ireland; and did believe that bearing his expenses, which was done by Bethel, was the least he could take. There is one thing in this fellow's paper that I know to be a lie, his being ill used by Rosingrave at lord Carnarvon's. He sung there, I believe once or twice for his own instruction or trial; and lord Carnarvon gave him a guinea. He went some times to hear the musick for his improvement. This is what they tell me. However, I have reprimanded the elder Rosingrave for taking the note. When this fellow came first to town, I thought his voice might do, but found it did not improve. It is mighty hard to get such a sort of a voice. There is an excellent one in the king's chapel; but he will not go. The top one of the world is in Bristol choir; and I believe might be managed; though your Rosingrave is really much improved: so do not totally exclude the young fellow till you have more maturely considered the matter. The dragon is come to town, and was entering upon the detail of the reasons of state that kept him from appearing at the beginning, &c. when I did believe at the same time, it was only a law of nature, to which the dragon is most subject, Remanere in statu in quo est, nisi deturbetur ab extrinseco. Lord Harley and lady Harley give you their service. Lewis is in the country with lord Bathurst, and has writ me a most dreadful story of a mad dog, that bit their huntsman; since which accident, I am told, he has shortened his stirrups three bores; they were not long before. Lord Oxford presented him with two horses. He has sold one, and sent the other to grass, avec beaucoup de sagesse. I do not believe the story of lord Bolingbroke's marriage, for I have been consulted about the lady; and, by some defects in her constitution, I should not think her appetite lay much toward matrimony. There is some talk about reversing his attainder; but I wish he may not be disappointed. I am for all precedents of that kind. They say the pretender is likely to have his chief minister impeached too. He has his wife prisoner like a ****. The footmen of the house of commons chose their speaker, and impeach, &c. I think it were proper, that all monarchs should serve their apprenticeships as pretenders, that we might discover their defects. Did you ever expect to live to see the duke of Ormond fighting against the protestant succession, and the duke of Berwick fighting for it? France, in confederacy with England, to reduce the exorbitant power of Spain? I really think there is no such good reason for living till seventy, as curiosity. You say you are ready to resent it as an affront, if I thought a beautiful lady a curiosity in Ireland; but pray is it an affront to say that a lady, hardly known or observed for her beauty in Ireland, is a curiosity in France? All deans naturally fall into paralogisms. My wife gives you her kind love and service, and, which is the first thing that occurs to all wives, wishes you well married. I have not clean paper more than to bid you — Adieu.

1. Of whom see some pleasantries, in the poetical part of this collection, in vol. VIII.