Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/430

418 be the best pleased to serve. Success in serving my friends would make me amends for the want of it in disserving my enemies. It is intolerable to want it in both, and yet both go together generally.

I have had two or three projects on foot for making such an establishment here as might tempt you to quit Ireland. One of them would have succeeded, and would have been agreeable in every respect, if engagements to my lady's kinsman (who did not, I suppose, deserve to be your clerk) had not prevented it. Another of them cannot take place, without the consent of those, who would rather have you a dean in Ireland, than a parish priest in England; and who are glad to keep you, where your sincere friend, my late lord Oxford, sent you. A third was wholly in our power; but when I inquired exactly into the value, I found it less than I had believed; the distance from these parts was great; and beside all this, an unexpected and groundless dispute about the right of presentation (but still such a dispute as the law must determine) had arisen. You will please to believe, that I mention these things for no other reason than to show you, how much those friends deserve you should make them a visit at least, who are so desirous to settle you among them. I hope their endeavours will not be always unsuccessful.

I received, some time ago, a letter from Dr. Delany; and very lately Mr. Pope sent me some sheets, which seem to contain the substance of two sermons of that gentleman's. The philosophia prima is above my reach, and especially when it attempts to prove, that God has done, or does so and so, by attempting to prove, that doing so and so is essential to his attributes, or necessary to his design; and that the