Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/34

26 is cursedly afraid of being overrun with too much politeness, and cannot regain one great genius, but at the expense of another. I tremble for my lord Peterborow, whom I now lodge with; he has too much wit, as well as courage, to make a solid general. and if he escapes being banished by others, I fear he will banish himself. This leads me to give you some account of the manner of my life and conversation, which has been infinitely more various and dissipated, than when you knew me and cared for me; and among all sexes, parties, and professions. A glut of study and retirement in the first part of my life, cast me into this; and this, I begin to see, will throw me again into study and retirement.

The civilities I have met with from opposite sets of people, have hindered me from being violent or sour to any party; but at the same time the observations and experiences I cannot but have collected, have made me less fond of, and less surprised at, any: I am therefore the more afflicted, and the more angry, at the violences and hardships I see practised by either. The merry vein you knew me in, is sunk into a turn of reflection, that has made the world Rh