Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/251

Rh being, that you should receive twelve shirts, which number shall be completed by the first proper occasion. Your kind letter, however, is extremely seasonable; and (next to a note from the treasury) has proved the most vivifying cordial in the world. If you please to send me now and then as much of the same as will lie upon the top of your pen, I should be contented to take sheets for shirts to the end of the chapter.

Since you are so good as to enter into my affairs, I shall trouble you with a detail of them, as well as of my conduct since I left England; which, in my opinion, you have a right to inspect, and approve or condemn, as you think fit. During my state of probation with the earl of Strafford, it was my endeavour to recommend myself to his excellency rather by fidelity, silence, and an entire submission, than by an affectation to shine in his service: And whatever difficulties, whatever discouragements fell in