Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/279

Rh pleased; and, for want of riches, people grow every day less solicitous to please me. Therefore I keep humble company, who are happy to come where they can get a bottle of wine without paying for it. I give my vicar a supper, and his wife a shilling, to play with me an hour at backgammon once a fortnight. To all people of quality, and especially of titles, I am not within; or, at least, am deaf a week or two after I am well. But, on Sunday evenings, it costs me six bottles of wine to people whom I cannot keep out. Pray, come over in April, if it be only to convince you that I tell no lies; and the journey will be certainly for your health. Mrs. Brent, my housekeeper, famous in print for digging out the great bottle, says, "she will be your nurse;" and the best physicians we have shall attend you without fees: although, I believe, you will have no occasion but to converse with one or two of them, to make them proud. Your letter came but last post, and you see my punctuality. I am unlucky at every thing I send to England. Two bottles of usquebaugh were broken. Well, my humble service to my lord Bolingbroke, lord Bathurst, lord Masham, and his lady my dear friend, and Mr. Pulteney, and the doctor, and Mr. Lewis, and our sickly friend Gay, and my lady Bolingbroke; and very much to Patty, who I hope will learn to love the world less, before the world leaves off to love her. I am much concerned to hear of my lord Peterborow being ill. I am exceedingly his servant; and pray God recover his health! As for your courtier Mrs. Howard, and her mistress, I have nothing to say, but that they have