Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/169

Rh

SEPT. 3, 1735.

HIS letter will be delivered to you by Faulkner the printer, who goes over on his private affairs. This is an answer to yours of two months ago, which complains of that profligate fellow Curll. I heartily wish you were what they call disaffected, as I am, I may say as David did, I have sinned greatly, but what have these sheep done? You have given no offence to the ministry, nor to the lords, nor commons, nor queen, nor the next in power. For you are a man of virtue, and therefore must abhor vice and all corruption, although your discretion holds the reins. "You need not fear any consequence in the commerce that has so long passed between us; although I never destroyed one of your letters. But my executors are men of honour and virtue, who have strict orders in my will to burn every letter left behind me." Neither did our letters contain any turns of wit, or fancy, or politicks, or satire, but mere innocent friendship; yet I am loth that any letters, from you and a very few other friends, should die before me; I believe we neither of us ever leaned our head upon our left hand to study what we should write next; yet we have held a constant intercourse from your youth and my middle age, and from your middle age it must be continued till my death, which my bad state of health makes me expect every month. I . XIV.