Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/127

Rh exert themselves for your sake. Mrs. Floyd has passed this winter rather better than the last; but cold weather is a great enemy of hers; and when you see her, I fear you will find, that though the goodness of the composition will always hold, yet so many winters have taken the beauty of it entirely off. It grows now near the time, that I have hopes you will soon part with my duke and duchess. I always used to be her doctor; I wish you would allow me to be yours, and take my advice, and try how the change of air would mend your constitution; but, I fear you will not. However, God bless you; and adieu.

DEAR SIR,

F ever lying was necessary, I fear it is so at present; for no truth can furnish me with sufficient excuse for not having writ long ago; therefore I have been strongly tempted to disown having received any return to my letters, which I wrote to you since my return to these parts; but upon more mature deliberation, I have convinced myself, that it is better rather to confess my fault, than to give you any handle to suspect my truth for the future. I wish every body was as timorous as myself, and then lying and deceit would never be so much in the fashion, as it has and will be for many ages past and to come. I remember you once told me, always to sit down to write when Rh