I am here alone, Madam, and know nothing to tell you. I came from town on Saturday for the worst cold I ever had in my life, and, what I care less to own even to myself, a cough. I hope Lord Chesterfield will not speak more truth in what I have quoted, than in his assertion, that one need not cough if one did not please. It has pulled me extremely, and you may believe I do not look very plump, when I am more emaciated that usual. However, I have taken James's powder for four nights, and have found great benefit from it; and if Miss Conway does not come back with soixante et douze quartiers, and the hauteur of a landgravine, I think I shall still be able to run down the precipices at Park-place with her-This is to be understood, supposing that we have any summer. Yesterday was the first moment that did not feel like Thule: not a glimpse of spring or green, except a miserable almond tree, half opening one bud, like my Lord PowersCOurt'S eye.
It will be warmer, I hope, by the King's birthday, or the old ladies will catch their deaths. There is a court dress to be instituted—(to thin the drawing-rooms)—stiff-bodied gowns and bare shoulders. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean! I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish, when half-stark; and I might fill the rest of my paper with such images, but your imagination will supply them; and you shall excuse me, though I leave this a short letter: but I wrote merely to thank your ladyship for the medal, and, as you perceive, have very little to say, besides that known and lasting truth, how much I am Mr. Conway's and your ladyship's faithful humble servant.
Letter 119 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 9, 1762. (PAGE 177)
I am glad you have received my books safe, and are content with them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights. He should always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which is printed in our papers. Advice is arrived to-day, that our troops have made good their landing at Martinico; I don't know any of the incidents yet.
You ask me for an epitaph for Lord Cutts;(222) I scratched out the following lines last night as I was going to bed; if they are not good enough, pray don't take them: they were written in a minute, and you are under no obligation to like them.
Late does the muse approach to Cutts's grave,
But ne'er the grateful muse forgets the brave;
He gave her subjects for the immortal lyre,
And sought in idle hours the tuneful choir;
Skilful to mount by either path to fame,
And dear to memory by a double name.
Yet if ill known amid the Aonian groves,
His shade a stranger and unnoticed roves,
The dauntless chief a nobler band may join:
They never die who conquer'd at the Boyne.
The last line intends to be popular in Ireland; but you must take care to be certain that he was at the battle of the Boyne; I conclude so; ind it should be specified the year, when you erect the monument-The latter lines mean to own his having been but a moderate poet, and to cover that mediocrity under his valour; all which is true. Make the sculptor observe the steps.
I have not been at Strawberry above a month, nor ever was so long
absent - but the weather has been cruelly cold and disagreeable.
We have not had a single dry week since the beginning of
September; a great variety of weather, all bad. Adieu!
(222) John Lord Cutts, a soldier of most hardy bravery in King William's wars. He died at Dublin in 1707. Swift's epigram on a Salamander alluded to this lord, who was called by the Duke of Marlborough the Salamander, on account of his always being in the thickest of the fire. He published, in 1687, "Poetical Exercises, written upon several Occasions."-E.
Letter 120 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, March 20, 1762. (PAGE 178)