Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/158

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MY DEAR AND WORTHY FRIEND,

OU have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends; for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the last I sent a great while ago, by one de la Mar. I can assure you, with great truth, that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart toward you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world; and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers, and good wishes.

The young man whom you recommended, came to this place, and I promised to do him what service my ill state of health would permit. I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, or move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God, that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborn for some years, because of bloody water) I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again; but I expect the return of my symptoms upon my return to London, and the return of the winter. I am not in circumstances to live an idle country life; and no man, at my age, ever recovered of such a disease, farther than by an abatement of the symptoms. What I did, I can assure you, was not for life, but ease. For I am, at present, in the case of a man that was almost in  bour,