Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/442

430, then you are angry; and there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and believe, I cannot help telling you this and live.

DEAR FRIEND,

HOPE this will find you in good health; and I hope in greater tranquillity of mind, than when we used to lament together at your office for the eternal faults of our friends. I have seen the dragon thrice since I wrote to you. He is without shadow of change; the greatest example of an unshaken tranquillity of mind, that ever I yet saw, seeming perfectly well satisfied with his own conduct in every particular. You know we have often said, that there is but one dragon in rerum natura. I do not know what