Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/427

Rh that journey, I fell sick, and was forced to return hither to my unenvied home. I hear the queen has blamed me for putting a stone, with a latin inscription, over the duke of Schomberg's burying place in my cathedral; and that the king said publickly, "I had done it in malice, to create a quarrel between him and the king of Prussia." But the publick prints, as well as the thing itself, will vindicate me: and the hand the duke had in the revolution made him deserve the best monument. Neither could the king of Prussia justly take it ill, who must needs have heard that the duke was in the service of Prussia, and stadtholder of it, as I have seen in his titles. The first time I saw the queen, I talked to her largely upon the conduct of princes and great ministers, it was on a particular occasion: "That when they receive an ill account of any person, although they afterward have the greatest demonstration of the falsehood, yet, will they never be reconciled:" And although the queen fell in with me upon the hardship of such a proceeding, yet now she treats me exactly in the same manner. I have faults enough, but never was guilty of any either to her majesty or to you; and as little to the king, whom I never saw, but when I had the honour to kiss his hand. I am sensible that I owe a great deal of this usage to sir Robert Walpole; whom yet I never offended, although he was pleased to quarrel with me very unjustly: for which, I showed not the least resentment (whatever I might have in my heart) nor was ever a partaker with those who have been battling with him for some years past. I am contented that the queen should see this letter; and would please to consider how severe a censure