Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/461

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SIR,

F I was to see you again, you would give twice as much as you offered six weeks ago, not to have seen me. By the same rule, you might afford something not to hear from me; but the enclosed came this morning to me, and I could not send it away, without adding a few lines in the cover. They are not to put you again into the spleen, but only to ask how you do, and how you employ yourself? Do the great designs go on at Laracor? Or have the rains put a stop to your improvements, as well as to my journey? It will cost you but a penny, and a few minutes, to answer these questions; and in return you shall know any thing you desire to know of me in my travels. I shall go on as soon as we have five or six days sunshine to dry the roads, and make the finest country in the world supportable. I am laughed at here, when I talk of travelling, and yet of waiting for fair weather; but to me the journey is the greatest part of the pleasure. And whereas my companion is continually wishing himself at Rome, I wish Rome was a thousand leagues farther, that I might have more way to pass in France and Italy.

If you will do me the favour to write to me, direct to be left with Mr. Cantillon, banker in Paris.

. XI.