Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/292

280

MY LORD,

TOLD your excellency, that you were to run on my errands. My lord Burlington has a very fine monument of his ancestor the earl of Corke, in my cathedral, which your excellency has seen. I and the chapter have written to him in a body, to have it repaired, and I in person have desired he would do it. And I desired likewise, that he would settle a parcel of land, worth five pounds a year (not an annuity) to keep it always in repair. He said, "He would do any thing to oblige me; but was afraid that in future times, the five pounds a year would be misapplied, and secured by the dean and chapter to their own use." I answered, "That a dean and twenty-four members of so great a chapter, who, in livings, estates, &c. had about four thousand pounds a year among them, would hardly divide four shillings among them, to cheat his posterity; and that we could have no view but to consult the honour of his family." I therefore command your excellency to lay this before him, and the affront he has put upon us, in not answering a letter written to him by the dean and chapter in a body.

The great duke of Schomberg is buried under the altar in my cathedral. My lady Holderness is my old acquaintance; and I writ to her about a small sum, to make a monument for her grandfather. I writ to her myself; and also, there was a letter from the