Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/152

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London, Sept. 25, 1711.

DINED in the city to day, and at my return I put my 30th into the postoffice; and when I got home I found for me one of the noblest letters I ever read; it was from, three sides and a half in folio on a large sheet of paper; the two first pages made up of satire upon London, and crowds and hurry, stolen from some of his own schoolboy's exercises: the side and a half remaining is spent in desiring me to recommend Mrs. South, your commissioner's widow, to my lord treasurer for a pension. He is the prettiest, discreetest fellow that ever my eyes beheld, or that ever dipped pen into ink. I know not what to say to him. A pox on him, I have too many such customers on this side already. I think I will send him word that I never saw my lord treasurer in my life: I am sure I industriously avoided the name of any great person when I saw him, for fear of his reporting it in Ireland. And this recommendation must be a secret too, for fear the duke of Bolton should know it, and think it was too mean. I never read so dd a letter in my life: a little would make me send it over to you. I must send you a pattern, the first place I cast my eyes on, I will not pick and choose. [In this place (meaning the Exchange in London) which is the compendium of old Troynovant, as that is of the whole busy world, I got such a surfeit, that I grew sick of mankind, and resolved, for ever after, to bury myself in