Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/109

Rh another enjoy it. When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument, if there were a wanting friend above ground.

Mr. Gay assures me his 3000l. is kept entire and sacred; he seems to languish after a line from you, and complains tenderly. Lord Bolingbroke has told me ten times over he was going to write to you. Has he, or not? The Dr. is unalterable, both in friendship and quadrille: his wife has been very near death last week: his two brothers buried their wives within these six weeks,weeks. [sic] Gay is sixty miles off, and has been so all this summer, with the duke and duchess of Queensberry. He is the same man: so is every one here that you know: mankind is unamendable. Optimus ille Qui minimis urgetur Poor Mrs. is like the rest, she cries at the thorn in her foot, but will suffer no body to pull it out. The court lady, I have a good opinion of, yet I have treated her more negligently than you would do, because you like to see the inside of a court, which I do not. I have seen her but twice. You have a desperate hand at dashing out a character by great strokes, and at the same time a delicate one at fine touches. God forbid you should draw mine, if I were conscious of any guilt: but if I were conscious only of folly, God send it! for as no body can detect a great fault so well as you, no body would so well hide a small one. But after all, that lady means to do good, and does no harm, which is a vast deal for a courtier. I can assure you that lord Peterborow always speaks kindly of you, and certainly has as great a mind to be you friend as any one. I must throw away my pen: it Rh