Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/278

264 your subscriptions to amount to eight hundred pounds. And yet, I believe, he lost as much more, for want of human prudence.

I told you some time ago, that I was dwindled to a writer of libels on the lady of the family where I lived, and upon myself; but they never went farther: and my lady Acheson made me give her up all the foul copies, and never gave the fair ones out of her hands, or suffered them to be copied. They were sometimes shown to intimate friends, to occasion mirth, and that was all. So that I am vexed at your thinking I had any hand in what could come to your eyes. I have some confused notion of seeing a paper called Sir Ralph the Patriot, but am sure it was bad or indifferent; and as to the Lady at Quadrille, I never heard of it. Perhaps it may be the same with a paper of verses, called, The Journal of a Dublin Lady, which I writ at sir Arthur Acheson's; and, leaving out what concerned the family, I sent it to be printed in a paper which doctor Sheridan had engaged in, called The Intelligencer, of which he made but sorry work, and then dropped it. But the verses were printed by themselves, and most horridly mangled in the press, and were very mediocre in themselves; but did well enough in the manner I mentioned, of a family jest. I do sincerely assure you, that my frequent old disorder, and the scene where I am, and the humour I am in, and some other reasons which time has shown, and will show more if I live, have lowered my small talents with a vengeance, and cooled my disposition to put them in use. I want only to be rich, for I am hard to be pleased