Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/15

Rh esteem and affection I am both obliged and inclined to have for you. It is better he should tell you than I, how often you are in our thoughts and in our cups, and how I learn to sleep less, and drink more, whenever you are named among us. I look upon a friend in Ireland as upon a friend in the other world, whom (popishly speaking) I believe constantly well-disposed toward me, and ready to do me all the good he can, in that state of separation, though I hear nothing from him, and make addresses to him but very rarely. A protestant divine cannot take it amiss that I treat him in the same manner with my patron saint.

I can tell you no news, but what you will not sufficiently wonder at, that I suffer many things as an author militant: whereof in your days of probation, you have been a sharer, or you had not arrived to that triumphant state you now deservedly enjoy in the church. As for me, I have not the least hopes of the cardinalate, though I suffer for my religion in almost every weekly paper. I have begun to take a pique at the psalms of David, if the wicked may be credited, who have printed a scandalous one in my name. This report I dare not discourage too much, in a prospect I have at present of a post under the marquis de Langallerre, wherein if I can but do some signal service against the pope, I may be considerably advanced by the Turks, the only religious people I dare confide in. If it should happen hereafter that I should write for the holy law of Mahomet, I hope Rh