Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/428

416 censure it is to believe I should write three to her, only to find fault with her ministry, and recommend Mrs. Barber: whom I never knew until she was recommended to me by a worthy friend, to help her to subscribers, which by her writings I thought she deserved. Her majesty gave me leave, and even commanded me, above five years ago, if I lived until she was queen, to write to her on behalf of Ireland: for the miseries of this kingdom she appeared then to be much concerned. I desired the friend who introduced me to be a witness of her majesty's promise. Yet that liberty I never took, although I had too many occasions; and is it not wonderful, that I should be suspected of writing to her in such a style, in such a counterfeit hand, and my name subscribed, upon a perfect trifle, at the same time that I well knew myself to be very much out of her majesty's good graces? I am, perhaps, not so very much awed with majesty as others; having known courts more or less from my early youth. And I have more than once told the queen, "That I did not regard her station half so much, as the good understanding I heard and found to be in her:" neither did I ever once see the late king, although her majesty was pleased to chide me on that account, for my singularity. In this I am a good whig, by thinking it sufficient to be a dutiful subject, without any personal regard for princes, farther than as their virtues deserve; and upon that score, had a most particular respect for the queen, your mistress. One who asks nothing may talk with freedom; and that is my case. I have not said half that was in my heart, but I will have done: and remembering that you are a countess, Rh