Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/204

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REVEREND SIR,

HAVE considered that part of your letter that relates to your own concerns. I find you, in earnest, very indifferent as to making your fortune; but you ought not to be so, for a weighty reason you insinuate yourself, that you cannot, without a settlement, be master of your time in such manner, as to apply yourself to do something that may be useful to the church. I know it is not in your power to do it when you please; but yet something may be done toward it. Get but a letter to the government, from my lord treasurer, for the first good preferment; and you will, at the same time, fill it with a good man, and perhaps prevent a bad one from getting into it. Sure there is no immodesty in getting such a recommendation. Consider that years grow upon you; and, after fifty, both body and mind decay. I have several things on the anvil, and near finished, that perhaps might be useful, if published: but the continual avocation by business, the impositions on me by impertinent visits, and the uneasiness of writing, which grows more intolerable to me every day, I doubt, will prevent my going any farther. Therefore lose no time; qui non est hodie, eras minus aptus erit. I am sure, you are able to do good service; and give me leave to be importunate with you to go about it. Cæsar wrote his Commentaries under the hurry and fatigues of a general; and perhaps a man's spirit is never more awakened, nor his thoughts  ter,