Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/276

264 put it out of my power, as a christian, to do you the least ill office. Next I desire to know, whether the greatest services ever done by one man to another, may not have the same turn as properly applied to them? And, once more, suppose they did laugh at me, I ask whether my inclinations to serve you, merit to be rewarded by the vilest treatment, whether they succeeded or not? If your interpretation were true, I was laughed at only for your sake; which, I think, is going pretty far to serve a friend. As to the letter I complain of, I appeal to your most partial friends, whether you ought not either to have asked, or written to me, or desired to have been informed by a third hand, whether I were any way concerned in writing the Examiner? And if I had shuffled, or answered indirectly, or affirmed it, or said I would not give you satisfaction; you might then have wreaked your revenge with some colour of justice. I have several times assured Mr. Addison, and fifty others, "That I had not the least hand in writing any of those papers; and that I had never exchanged one syllable with the supposed author in my life, that I can remember, nor ever seen him above twice, and that in mixed company, in a place where he came to pay his attendance." One thing more I must observe to you, that a year or two ago, when some printers used to bring me their papers in manuscript, I absolutely forbid them to give any hints against Mr. Addison and you, and some others; and have frequently struck out reflections upon you in particular, and should (I believe) have done it still, if I had not wholly left off troubling myself about those kind of things.

I protest, I never saw any thing more liable to exception,