Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/258

246 me more sensibly than your approbation. To acquire the esteem of persons of your merit, is the principal advantage I could wish for by becoming an author, and more than I could flatter myself with. I should be proud of receiving your commands, if I could be any way useful to you in this part of the world; where, I assure you, your reputation is as well established as in your own country. I am with the utmost regard and esteem, reverend sir, your most humble, and most obliged, obedient servant,

A. RAMSAY.

AUGUST, 1727.

WRITE to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy because you have a bad head, and deaf ears. These are two misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet was never peevish with myself or the world. Have I more philosophy and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the evil? Is this meant in a good natured view? or do I mean, that I please myself, when I insult over you? Answer these queries in writing, if poison or other methods do not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your own word poison, give me leave to tell you, it is nonsense; and I desire you will take more care, for the time to come, how you endeavour to impose upon my understanding, by making no use of your own. TO