Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/288

276 I had your letter just before this was sealed; but I cannot answer it now.

MADAM,

WRITE this letter to your ladyship, in the employment you have chosen of being a go-between the duke of Dorset and me. I must preface this letter with an honest declaration, That I never proposed any one thing to his grace, wherein I did not chiefly consult his honour and the general opinion of the kingdom. I had the honour to know him from a boy, as I did your ladyship from a child; and yet, excepting great personal civilities, I never was able to obtain the favour of getting one church preferment for any friend, except one too inconsiderable to mention. I writ to, and told my lord duke, that there was a certain family here, called the Grattans, and that they could command ten thousand men: two of them are parsons, as you whigs call them; another is lord mayor of this city, and was knighted by his grace a month or two ago. But there is another cousin of theirs, who is a Grattan, though his name be John Jackson, as worthy a clergyman as any in this kingdom. He lives upon his own small estate, four miles from this town, and in his own parish; but he has four children. He only wants some little addition of a hundred pounds a year; for he has laid out eight hundred pounds, to build upon his own