Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/429

Rh characters being well understood, the author must hereafter expect no mercy, if he give his enemies any grounds or colour to attack him. But notwithstanding all my caution, if I perceive you dislike this manner and form of the poem, I will, some way or other, contrive that it may be published as you shall direct.

I send you my best wishes, and I hope you will yet live many years in a perfect state for the sake of your friends, for the benefit of your country, and for the honour of mankind; and I beg you to believe that I am, with the greatest truths sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

W. K.

MADAM,

VERY kind letter, which I have just received from you, has put me into great confusion. I beg of you to be assured, that I think myself under the highest obligations to you, and that I set a true value on the friendship with which you have honoured me, and shall endeavour to preserve it as long as I live. If our correspondence has been interrupted, it has been wholly owing to the ill treatment I received from the postoffice; for some time I did not receive a letter that had not been opened, and very often my letters were delivered to me with. XIII.