Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/466

454 tune in regard to your lordship. She has forced courts to act against their oldest and most constant maxims; to make you a general because you had courage and conduct; an ambassador because you had wisdom and knowledge in the interests of Europe; and an admiral on account of your skill in maritime affairs: whereas, according to the usual method of court proceedings, I should have been at the head of the army, and you of the church, or rather a curate under the dean of St. Patrick's.

The archbishop of Dublin laments that he did not see your lordship till he was just upon the point of leaving the Bath: I pray God you may have found success in that journey; else I shall continue to think there is a fatality in all your lordship's undertakings, which only terminate in your own honour, and the good of the publick, without the least advantage to your health or fortune. I remember lord Oxford's ministry used to tell me, "That, not knowing where to write to you, they were forced to write at you." It is so with me; for you are in one thing an evangelical man, that "you know not where to lay your head;" and I think you have no house. Pray, my lord, write to me, that I may have the pleasure, in this scoundrel country, of going about, and showing my depending parsons a letter from the earl of Peterborow.

I am, &c. BY