Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/362

350

SIR,

OU give me such good reasons for your desire of knowing what becomes of our grand affair, that, to oblige you, and perhaps to give myself vent, I will tell you what I think on it. The two ladies seem to have determined the fall of the dragon, and to entertain a chimerical notion, that there shall be no monsieur le premier, but that all power shall reside in one, and profit in the other. The man of Mercury soothes them in this notion with great dexterity and reason, for he will be monsieur le premier then of course, by virtue of the little seal. His character is too bad to carry the great ensigns; therefore he takes another method, and I think it very artful, viz. to continue his present station, to which the power may altogether be as properly attached as to the wand. In this brangle I am no otherwise concerned, than that I must lose part of the pleasure I had in the conversation of my friends. And that I am really apprehensive the two ladies may suffer by the undertaking; for the man of Mercury's bottom is too narrow, his faults of the first magnitude; and we cannot find, that there is any scheme in the world how to proceed. Mercurialis plains,