Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/350

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DEAR SIR,

EXPECT, in about a fortnight, to set out for Wiltshire, and am as impatient as you seem to be to have me to get on horseback. I thought proper to give you this intelligence, because Mr. Lewis told me last Sunday, that he was in a day or two, to set out for the Bath; so that very soon you are likely to have neither of your cashiers in town. Continue to direct for me at this house: the letters will be sent to me, wherever I am. My ambition, at present, is levelled to the same point that you direct me to; for I am every day building villakins, and have given over that of castles. If I were to undertake it in my present circumstance, I should, in the most thrifty scheme, soon be straitened; and I hate to be in debt; for I cannot bear to pawn five pounds worth of my liberty to a tailor or a butcher. I grant you, this is not having the true spirit of modern nobility; but it is hard to cure the prejudice of education. I have made your compliments to Mr. Pulteney, who is very much your humble servant. I have not seen the doctor, and am not likely to see his Rouen brother very soon; for he is gone to China. Mr. Pope told me, he had acquainted the doctor with the misfortune of the sour hermitage. My lord Oxford told me, he at present could match yours, and from the same person. The doctor was touched with your disappointment, and has promised to