Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/348

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DOVER-STREET, GOOD MR. DEAN,

T is now above a whole year and six months since I have had the favour and pleasure of a line from your own self, and I have not troubled you with one from myself; the answer that you would naturally make is very obvious, Why do you then trouble me now? I reply. It is to join with my friend Mr. Pope in recommending the person concerned in the enclosed proposal to your favour and protection, and to entreat that you would be so good as to promote his enterestinterest [sic]. I have not sent you any of his receipts; but will when you please to let me know what number you can dispose of: I believe that your bishops have more learning, at least would be thought to have more, than our bench here can pretend to; so I hope they will all subscribe. The person concerned is a worthy honest man; and, by this work of his, he is in hopes to get free of the load which has hung upon him some years: this debt of his is not owing to any folly or extravagance of his, but to the calamity of his house being twice burnt, which he was obliged to rebuild; and having but small preferment in the church, and a large family of children, he has not been able to extricate himself out of the difficulties these accidents have brought upon him. Three sons he has bred up well at Westminster, and they are excellent scholars: the Rh