Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/222

186 duchess. She has promised me to get the queen to write to the duchess kindly on this occasion; and to morrow I will beg lord treasurer to visit and comfort her. I have been with her two hours again, and find her worse. Her violences not so frequent, but her melancholy more formal and settled. Lady Orkney, her sister in law, is come to town on the occasion, and has been to see her, and behaved herself with great humanity. They have been always very ill together; and the poor duchess could not have patience when people told her I went often to lady Orkney's. But I am resolved to make them friends; for the duchess is now no more the object of envy, and must learn humility from the severest master, affliction." Here we see that not content with what friendly offices he could do in his own person, he immediately applies to higher powers, even to royalty itself, to administer richer cordials to raise her sinking soul, and pour a more sovereign balm on her afflicted spirit. And at the same time forms a plan for her future ease and comfort, by endeavouring to make up a family breach.

The accounts he gives of the illness and death of poor Harrison, for whom he had made so noble a provision, are manifestly the effusions of a tender heart. February 12, 1722. "I found a letter on my table last night, to tell me that poor little Harrison, the queen's secretary, that came lately from Utrecht with the barrier treaty, was ill, and desired to see me at night: but it was late, and I could not go till to day. I went in the morning Rh