Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/217

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MADAM,

TROUBLE you sooner than usual, in acknowledging your letter of May 27th, because there are some passages in it that seem to require a quick answer. If I forget the date of mine, you must impute it to my ill head; and if I live two years longer, I shall first forget my own name, and last your ladyship's. I gave my lady Kerry an account of what you said in relation to her son, with which she is fully satisfied. I detest the house of lords, for their indulgence to such a profligate prostitute villain as Curll; but am at a loss how he could procure any letters written to Mr. Pope; although, by the vanity or indiscretion of correspondents, the rogue might have picked up some that went from him. Those letters have not yet been sent hither; therefore I can form no judgment on them. When I was leaving England, upon the queen's death, I burnt all the letters I could find, that I had received from ministers for several years before. But, as to the letters I receive from your ladyship, I neither ever did or ever will burn any of them, take it as you please: for I never burn a letter that is entertaining, and consequently will give me new pleasure when it is forgotten. It is true, I have kept some letters merely out of friendship, although they sometimes wanted true spelling and good sense, and some others whose writers are dead: for I live like a monk, and