Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/314

300 your advice, and I will write to your brother Helsham this post for his. Write me no news of the club, and get one of them to frank your letters, that they may be worth reading. "Dear madam, I beg you may rather think me like the devil, or my wife, than Webber. I do assure you that my house, and all about it, is clean in potentia. If you do not understand so much logick, Mr. Harrison will tell you; but I suppose you ignorant of nothing but doing any thing wrong. Be pleased to send me one of your fattest pigeons in a post letter, and I will send you in return a fat goose, under cover to one of the club. The dean may say what he pleases of my ay con O my; but I assure you I have this moment in my house, a quarter of fat beef, a fat sheep, two mallards, a duck, and a teal, beside some fowl in squadrons. I wish you were here. Ask the dean if I have not fine ale, table drink, good wine, and a new pair of tables. Now hear the dean." It grows dark, and I cannot read one syllable of what the doctor last writ; but conclude all to be a parcel of lies. How are eldest master and miss? with your clerk and schoolboy? So God bless you all. If the doctor has any thing more to say, let him conclude, as I do, with assurance that I am ever, with great affection, yours, &c.

Read as you can, for I believe I have made forty mistakes. Direct for me at doctor Sheridan's in Cavan; but let a clubman frank it, as I do this. Mr. Rochfort is my franker: yours may be general ——, or some other (great beast of a) hero. My two puppies