Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/451

Rh and family, who could do it best, is a little too lazy; but, however, something shall be done, and submitted to you. I have been only a man of rhimes, and that upon trifles; never having written serious couplets in my life; yet never any without a moral view. However, as an admirer of Milton, I will read yours as a critick, and make objections where I find any thing that should be changed. Your directions about publishing the epistle and the poetry will be a point of some difficulty. They cannot be printed here with the least profit to the author's friends in distress. Dublin booksellers have not the least notion of paying for a copy. Sometimes things are printed here by subscription; but they go on so heavily, that few or none make it turn to account. In London, it is otherwise; but even there the authors must be in vogue, or, if not known, be discovered by the style; or the work must be something that hits the taste of the publick, or what is recommended by the presiding men of genius.

When Milton first published his famous poem, the first edition was very long going off; few either read, liked, or understood it; and it gained ground merely by its merit. Nothing but an uncertain state of my health (caused by a disposition to giddiness, which, although less violent, is more constant) could have prevented my passing this summer into England to see my friends, who hourly have expected me; in that case I could have managed this affair myself, and would have readily consented that my name should have stood at length before your epistle; and by the caprice of the world, that circumstance might have been of use to make the thing known; and consequently better answer the charitable part of Rh