Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/99

 countenanced in too publick and particular a manner to be forgotten, either by the world or myself; for which, never man was more proud, or less vain.

I have now been ten years soliciting for your picture; and if I had solicited you for a thousand pounds (I mean of your own money, not the publick) I could have prevailed in ten days. You have given me many hundred hours; can you not now give me a couple? have my mortifications been so few, or are you so malicious to add a greater than I ever yet suffered? did you ever refuse me any thing I asked you? and will you now begin? In my conscience, I believe, and by the whole conduct of your life I have reason to believe, that you are too poor to bear the expense. I ever told you, I was the richer man of the two; and I am now richer by five hundred pounds, than I was at the time when I was boasting at your table of my wealth, before Diamond Pitt.

I have hitherto taken up with a scurvy print of you, under which I have placed this lemma:

— Veteres actus primamque juventam Prosequar? ad sese mentem præsentia ducunt.

And this I will place under your picture, whenever you are rich enough to send it me. I will only promise, in return, that it shall never lose you the reputation of poverty; which, to one of your birth, patrimony, and employments, is one of the greatest glories of your life, and so shall be celebrated by me.

I entreat your lordship, if your leisure and your health will permit, to let me know when I can be a month with you at Brampton castle; because I have