Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/51

Rh and what is worse, it is then too late to get others, if they were to be had, for the younger ones are all engaged. I shall never differ from you in any thing longer, than till you declare your opinion; because I never knew you wrong in any thing, except your condescending to have any regard for me; and therefore, all you say upon the subject of friendship, I heartily allow. But I doubt you are a perverter; for sure I was never capable of comparing the loss of friends, with the loss of money. I think we never lament the death of a friend upon his own account, but merely on account of his friends, or the publick, or both; and his, for a person in private life, was as great as possible. How finely you preach to us who are going out of the world, to keep our spirits, without informing us where we shall find materials! Yet I have my flatterers too, who tell me, I am allowed to have retained more spirits than hundreds of others who are richer, younger, and healthier than myself; which, considering a thousand mortifications, added to the perfect ill will of every creature in power, I take to be a high point of merit, as well as an implicit obedience to your grace's commands. Neither are those spirits (such as they be) in the least broken by the honour of lying under the same circumstances, with a certain great person, whom I shall not name, of being in disgrace at court. I will excuse your blots upon paper, because they are the only blots that you ever did, or ever will make in the whole course of your life. I am content, upon your petition, to receive the duke and your grace for my stewards for that immense sum; and in proper time, I may come to thank you, as king does the commons, for your loyal Rh