Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/271

Rh We neither of us know what the other hath writ; so one answer will serve, if you write to us both, provided you justly give us both our share, and each of us will read our own part. Pray tell us how you breathe, and whether that disorder be better.

If the dean should give you any hint about money, you need not mind him, for to my knowledge he borrowed twenty pounds a month ago, to keep himself alive.

I am sorry to tell you, that poor Mrs. Whiteway is to be hanged on Tuesday next for stealing a piece of Indian silk out of Bradshaw's shop, and did not set the house on fire, as I advised her. I have writ a very masterly poem on the legion club; which, if the printer should be condemned to be hanged for it, you will see in a threepenny book; for it is 240 lines. Mrs. Whiteway is to have half the profit and half the hanging.

The drapier went this day to the Tholsel ''as a merchant, to sign a petition to the government against lowering the gold, where we hear he made a long speech, for which he will be reckoned a jacobite. God send hanging does not go round.''

Yours, &c.

MY LORD,

HAVE two or three times begun a letter to your lordship, and as often laid it aside; until, by the unmasked advice of some friends of yours, and of all Rh