Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/302

290 eleventh. Mine are all down, and only twelve which are not entered in a letter, which I will send you when health permits and I have nothing else to do, and that may be a twelvemonth hence, if my disorder will let me hold out so long. You were born to be happy, for you take the least piece of good fortune cheerfully. I suppose your arithmetick is, that three boys a week are a hundred and fifty nine in a year; and seven guineas a week are three hundred and sixty-five per annum. Can you reckon that the county, and the next, and Dublin, will provide you with thirty lads in all, and good pay, of which a dozen shall be lodgers? Does the cheapness of things answer your expectation? Have you sent away your late younger-married daughter? and will you send away the other? Let me desire you will be very regular in your accounts; because a very honest friend of yours and mine tells me, that with all your honesty, it is an uneasy thing to have any dealings with you that relate to accounts by your frequent forgetfulness and confusion: for you have no notion of regularity; and I do not wonder at it, considering the scattered, confused manner in which you have lived. Mrs. Whiteway thanks you for the good opinion you have of her, and I know she always loved and defended you. I cannot tell when I shall be able to travel. I have three other engagements on my hands, but the principal is to see the bishop of Ossory. Yet I dread the lying abroad above five miles. I am never well. Some sudden turns are every day threatening me with a giddy fit; and my affairs are terribly embroiled. I have a scheme of living with you, when the College green club is to meet; for in these times I detest the town, and