Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/370

358 this kind that I ever made, since the publick changes, in times, persons, measures, and opinions, drove me into distance and obscurity.

There is an honest man, whose name is Launcelot; he has been long a servant to my lord Sussex: he married a relation of mine, a widow, with a tolerable jointure; which, depending upon a lease which the duke of Grafton suffered to expire about three years ago, sunk half her little fortune. Mr. Launcelot had many promises from the duke of Dorset, while his grace held that office which is now in your lordship ; but they all failed, after the usual fate that the bulk of court suitors must expect.

I am very sensible that I have no manner of claim to the least favour from your lordship, whom I have hardly the honour to be known to, although you were always pleased to treat me with much humanity, and with more distinction than I could pretend to deserve. I am likewise conscious of that demerit which I have largely shared with all those who concerned themselves in a court and ministry, whose maxims and proceedings have been ever since so much exploded. But your lordship will grant me leave to say, that in those times, when any persons of the ejected party came to court, and were of tolerable consequence, they never failed to succeed in any reasonable request they made for a friend. And when I sometimes added my poor solicitations, I used to quote the then ministers a passage in the Gospel, "The poor (meaning their own dependents) you have always with you," &c.

This is the strongest argument I have to entreat Rh