Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/293

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MR. DEAN,

HEN you was so kind as to favour the master of the temple and me, with your company at the chaplain's table at Kensington, there dined with us one Mr. Fiddes, a well deserving clergyman, whose circumstances, we told you, were not at all suitable to his merits. You expressed on that occasion so generous a concern for him, and so great a readiness to do him any good offices, which might lie in your way, that he seems to think he should be wanting to himself, if he did not endeavour to cultivate an interest with one so willing and so able to serve him. He has therefore made repeated instances to me, that I would remind you of him, which I should not have hearkened to, were I not assured, that you would excuse, if not thank me, for furnishing you with an opportunity of doing a generous and good natured thing. You will not, I fancy, think a formal application to any great man in his behalf either proper or requisite; but if you should, upon the perusal of one or two of his sermons, think as well of them as I do, and should in conversation with my lord treasurer express a good opinion of the author, one kind word from you, seasonably dropped, might termine