Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/185

Rh your son's letter to him, and he was equally pleased with it, and justified the progress the young man had made in his school. I went this evening to visit a lady, who has a very great esteem and friendship for you and Mrs. *****: she told me, "That the young man's great fault was, too much pertness and conceit of himself, which he often showed in your house, and even among company;" which, I own, is a very bad quality in any young man, and is not easily cured: yet, I think, if I had a son, who had understanding, wit, and humour, to write such a letter, I could not find in my heart to cast him off, but try what good advice and maturer years would do toward amendment; and in the mean time, give him no cause to complain of wanting convenient food, lodging, and raiment. He lays the whole weight of his letter to me upon the truth of the facts, and is contented to stand or fall by them. If he be a liar, he is into the bargain an unpardonable fool; and his good natural, as well as acquired parts, shall be an aggravation to me, to render him more odious. I hear he is turned of one and twenty years; and what he alleges seems to be true, that he is not yet put into any way of living, either by law, physick, or divinity; although, in his letter, he pretends to have studied the first, on your promise to send him to the Temple; but, your mind altering, and you rather choosing to send him to Leyden, he applied himself to study physick, and made some progress in it: but, for many months, he has heard nothing more from you; so that now he is in utter despair, loaden with the hatred of both his parents, and lodges in a garret in William street, with only the liberty