Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/232

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SIR,

ITH great difficulty, I recovered your present of the finest box in France out of the hands of Mrs. Hill: she allowed her own to be the prettiest, but then mine was the handsomest; and in short, she would part with neither. I pleaded my brotherhood, and got my lord and lady Masham to intercede; and at last, she threw it me with a heavy sigh: but now it is in my possession, I wish you had sent a paper of directions how I shall keep it. You that sit at your ease, and have nothing to do but keep Dunkirk, never consider the difficulties you have brought upon me: twenty ladies have threatened to seize or surprise my box; and what are twenty thousand French or Dutch in comparison of those; Mrs. Hill says, it was a very idle thing in you to send such a present to a man who can neither punish nor reward you, since Grub street is no more: for the parliament has killed all the Muses of Grub street, who yet, in their last moments, cried out nothing but Dunkirk. My lord treasurer, who is the most malicious person in the world, says, you ordered a goose to be drawn at the bottom of my box, as a reflection upon the clergy; and that I ought to resent it. But I am not angry at all, and his lordship observes by halves: for the goose is there drawn pecking at a snail, just as I do at him, to make him mend his pace in relation to the publick, although it be hitherto in vain. And besides, Dr.