with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort, and love me on with all mine.
DUBLIN, SEPT. 20, 1723.
RETURNING from a summer expedition of four months on account of my health, I found a letter from you, with an appendix longer than yours from lord Bolingbroke. I believe there is not a more miserable malady than an unwillingness to write letters to our best friends, and a man might be philosopher enough in finding out reasons for it. One thing is clear, that it shows a mighty difference betwixt friendship and love, for a lover (as I have heard) is always scribbling to his mistress. If I could permit myself to believe what your civility makes you say, that I am still remembered by my friends in England, I am in the right to keep myself here Non sum qualis eram[1]. I left you in a period of life when one year does more execution than three at yours, to which if you add the dulness of air, and of the people, it will make a terrible sum. I have no very strong faith in your pretenders to retirement, you are not of an age for it, nor have gone through either good or bad fortune enough to go into a corner, and form conclusions de contemptu mundi & fuga sæculi[2],
unless
