Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/461

Rh pleasure of thinking of you, yet I sweat to assure you how much I am, dear sir, your ever obliged and obedient humble servant,

ORRERY.

SIR,

AM much obliged to you for the full, though melancholy, account you have sent me of my ever honoured friend. It is the more melancholy to me, as I have heard him often lament the particular misfortune incident to human nature, of an utter deprivation of senses many years before a deprivation of life. I have heard him describe persons in that condition, with a liveliness and a horrour, that on this late occasion have recalled to me his very words. Our litany, methinks should have an addition of a particular prayer against this most dreadful misfortune. I am sure mine shall. The bite of a mad dog (a most tremendous evil) ends soon in death; but the effects of his loss of memory may last even to the longest age of man; therefore I own my friendship for him has now changed my thoughts and wishes into the very reverse of what they were, I rejoice to hear he grows lean. I am sorry to hear his appetite is good. I was glad when there seemed an approaching mortification in his eyelid. In one word, the man I wished to live the longest I wish the. XIII.