Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/191

Rh It is one of the greatest evils that attends those whom fortune has forsaken, that their friends forsake them too: and let me tell you, that your not seeing me the whole winter I was last in Dublin, was not a less mortification to me, than all the hard sayings of the great parliament orators. However, I must own your taking any occasion to write to me at all, has made some amends; for though you seem designedly to cover it, I think I perceive some little marks of that former kindness, which I once pleased myself to have had a share in with your lawyer friends. When I conversed with politicians, I learned, that it was not prudent to seem fond of what one most desires: for which reason, I would not tell you, that if this accident of your poetical friend should open a way to our frequent meeting together again, and being put upon the old foot, as when I was your subject at St. Patrick's, I should think myself the happiest man in the world; but this I will say, that if it falls out so, this last heavy period of my life will be much more tolerable than it is at present.

I am now wholly employed in digging up rocks, and making the way easier to my church; which if I can succeed in, I design to repair a very venerable old fabrick, that was built here in the time of our ignorant (as we are pleased to call them) ancestors. I wish this age had a little of their piety, though we gave up, instead of it, some of our immense erudition. What if you spent a fortnight here this Rh