Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/89

Rh be mine or Virgil's, I cannot determine. I am this minute very busy, being to preach to day before an audience of at least fifteen people, most of them gentle, and all simple.

I can send you no news; only the employment of my parishioners may, for memory-sake, be reduced under these heads, Mr. Percivall is ditching; Mrs. Percivall in her kitchen; Mr. Wesley switching; Mrs. Wesley stitching; sir Arthur Langford riching, which is a new word for heaping up riches. I know no other rhyme but bitching, and that I hope we are all past. Well, sir, long may you live the hospitable owner of good Bits, good Books, and good Buildings. The bishop of Clogher would envy me for those three Bes. I am your most obedient, humble servant,

J. SWIFT.

JUNE 27, 1710.

NEITHER can nor will have patience any longer; and, Swift, you are a confounded son of a. May your half acre turn to a bog, and may your willows perish; may the worms eat your Plato, and may Parvisole break your snuffbox. What! because there is never a bishop in England with half the wit of St. George Ashe, nor ever a secretary of state with a quarter of Addison's good sense;