Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/307

Rh as this, which is only to be supported by the greatest wisdom and strength of mind; wherein, God knows, the wisest and best of us, who would presume to offer their thoughts, are far your inferiours. It is true, indeed, that a great misfortune is apt to weaken the mind, and disturb the understanding. This, indeed, might be some pretence to us to administer our consolations, if we had been wholly strangers to the person gone. But, my lord, whoever had the honour to know her, wants a comforter as much as your lordship; because, though their loss is not so great, yet they have not the same firmness and prudence, to support the want of a friend, a patroness, a benefactor, as you have to support that of a daughter. My lord, both religion and reason forbid me to have the least concern for that lady's death, upon her own account; and he must be an ill christian, or a perfect stranger to her virtues, who would not wish himself, with all submission to God Almighty's will, in her condition. But your lordship, who has lost such a daughter, and we, who have lost such a friend, and the world, which has lost such an example, have, in our several degrees, greater cause to lament, than, perhaps, was ever given by any private person before: for, my lord, I have sat down to think of every amiable quality that could enter into the composition of a lady, and could not single out one, which she did not possess in as high a perfection as human nature is capable of. But as to your lordship's own particular, as it is an unconceivable misfortune to have lost such a daughter, so it is a possession which few can boast of, to have had such a daughter. I have often said to your lordship, "That I never knew any one by many degrees so happy Rh