Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/373

Rh with success for two years longer, I fear I shall not have a farthing of it left. The doctor hath ill informed me, who says that Mr. Pope is at present the chief poetical favourite, yet Mr. Pope himself talks like a philosopher and one wholly retired. But the vogue of our few honest folks here is, that Duck is absolutely to succeed Eusden in the laurel, the contention being between Concannen or Theobald, or some other hero of the Dunciad. I never charged you for not talking, but the dubious state of your affairs in those days was too much the subject, and I wish the duchess had been the voucher of your amendment. Nothing so much contributed to my ease as the turn of affairs after the queen's death; by which all my hopes being cut off, I could have no ambition left, unless I would have been a greater rascal than happened to suit with my temper. I therefore sat down quietly at my morsel, adding only thereto a principle of hatred to all succeeding measures and ministries by way of sauce to relish my meat: and I confess one point of conduct in my lady duchess's life has added much poignancy to it. There is a good Irish practical bull toward the end of your letter, where you spend a dozen lines in telling me you must leave off, that you may give my lady duchess room to write, and so you proceed to within two or three lines of the bottom; though I would have remitted you my 200l. to have left place for as many more.

MADAM,

MY beginning thus low is meant as a mark of respect, like receiving your grace at the bottom of the stairs.