Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/204

192 within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you therefore from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give you farther proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again by the end of next week; by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business, will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu, Jonathan, Alexander, John! Mirth be with you.

From the banks of the Severn, July 23, 1726.

JULY 27, 1726.

HAVE yours just now of the 19th, and the account you give me, is nothing but what I have some time expected with the utmost agonies; and there is one aggravation of constraint, that where I am, I am forced to put on an easy countenance. It was at this time the best office your friendship could do, not to deceive me. I was violently bent all last year, as I believe you remember, that she should go to Montpellier, or Bath, or Tunbridge. I entreated, if