Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/74

62 use a canonical simile) as the sun did on the dial of Hezekiah, and begin anew the twelve years which you complain are gone. We will restore to you the nigros angusto fronte capillos; and with them, the dulce loqui, the ridere decorum, et inter vina fugam Cynaræ mœrere protervæ. Hæc est vita solutorum miserâ ambitione gravique, and not yours.

I was going to finish with my sheet of paper; but having bethought myself, that you deserve some more punishment, and calling all my anger against you to my aid, I resolve, since I am this morning in the humour of scribbling, to make my letter at least as long as one of your sermons; and, if you do not mend, my next shall be as long as one of Dr. Manton's, who taught my youth to yawn, and prepared me to be a high churchman, that I might never hear him read, nor read him more.

You must know, that I am as busy about my hermitage, which is between the Chateau and the Maison Bourgeoise, as if I was to pass my life in it: and if I could see you now and then, I should be willing enough to do so. I have in my wood the biggest and the clearest spring perhaps in Europe, which forms, before it leaves the park, a more beautiful river than any which flows in Greek or Latin verse. I have a thousand projects about this spring, and among others, one, which will employ some marble. Now marble, you know, makes one think of inscriptions: and if you will correct this, which I have not yet committed to paper, it shall be