Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/449

Rh myself, but to show it to the few judicious friends I have in this kingdom. We all agreed that the writer was a scholar, a man of genius and of honour. We guessed him to have been born in this country from some passages; but not from the style, which we were surprised to find so correct, in an exile, a soldier, and a native of Ireland. The history of yourself, although part of it be employed in your praise and importance, we did not dislike, because your intention was to be wholly unknown; which circumstance exempts you from any charge of vanity. However, although I am utterly ignorant of present persons and things, I have made a shift, by talking in general with some persons, to find out your name, your employments, and some of your actions, with the addition of such a character as would give full credit to more than you have said (I mean of yourself) in the dedicatory epistle.

You will pardon a natural curiosity on this occasion, especially when I began with so little, that I did not so much as untie the strings of the bag for five days after I received it; concluding it must come from some Irish friar in Spain, filled with monastick speculations, of which I have seen some in my life; little expecting a history, a dedication, a poetical translation of the penitential psalms, latin poems, and the like, and all from a soldier. In these kingdoms, you would be a most unfashionable military man, among troops where the least Rh