Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/327

Rh hopes, or past fears, before they could reach him. I fell a scolding when I heard they were coming; and the people about him wondered at me, and said what a mighty content it would be on both sides to die when they were with him. I knew the mother; she is the greatest Overdo upon earth, and the sister, they say, is worse; the poor man will relapse again among them. Here was the scoundrel brother always crying in the outer room till sir Andrew was in danger, and the dog was to have all his estate if he died; and it is an ignorant, worthless, scoundrel rake: and the nurses were comforting him, and desiring he would not take on so. I dined to day the first time with Ophy Butler and his wife; and you supped with the dean, and lost two and twenty pence at cards. And so Mrs. Walls is brought to bed of a girl, who died two days after it was christened; and betwixt you and me, she is not very sorry: she loves her ease and diversions too well to be troubled with children. I will go to bed.

6. Morning. I went last night to put some coals on my fire after Patrick was gone to bed; and there I saw in a closet a poor linnet he has bought to bring over to Dingley: it cost him sixpence, and is as tame as a dormouse. I believe he does not know he is a bird: where you put him, there he stands, and seems to have neither hope nor fear; I suppose in a week he will die of the spleen. Patrick advised with me before he bought him. I laid fairly before him the greatness of the sum, and the rashness of the attempt; showed how impossible it was to carry him safe over the salt sea: but he would not take my counsel, and he will repent it. Rh