Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/309

Rh

SIR,

CANNOT help telling you that I think you do me great wrong in charging me with being too civil, and with want of plainness in my letters to you. If you will be abundant in your favours to me, how can I forbear thanking you? and if you will call that by a wrong name, that is your fault, and not mine. I hope I shall be able to convince you of your mistake, by putting you in the place of the party obliged; and then I will show you, that I can be as ready as you are in doing good offices for a friend, and when I have done them, can treat you as you do me, as if you were the benefactor, and I had received the favour: I am sorry I did not keep a copy of my letter to you, that I might compare it with that which I shall have from you, whenever I shall be so happy as to receive one from you upon that subject; for I am thoroughly persuaded, you will then as much outdo me in civility of expression, as you do now in the power of conferring favours. By