Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/381

Rh

DEAR MADAM,

RECEIVED the favour of your letter last post. I was deprived of having that pleasure sooner, by removing from Summerseat to this place the beginning of last month, where I was sent for by my father, to attend him in a fit of the gout, of which he has been very ill these three months past. My sister, who takes care of him and his family, being near the time of her lying in, I trouble you with this account, that you may know how I am engaged at present, which I fear will prevent my having an opportunity of waiting upon you before my uncle returns.

I most humbly thank you for your kind invitation, and do heartily wish it were any way in my power to let you know the grateful sense I have of my obligations to you. I hope the dean of St. Patrick's is very well: it would have given me infinite pleasure to have had the honour of being in his company with you.

When I parted with my uncle, he proposed to make but a short stay in England at this time; and at his return he intended to leave nothing undone that he could think of, to prevail with the dean and you to spend some time at his house this summer. I hope you will be so good as to give him all the assistance you can, to persuade the dean to take that jaunt: I really believe it would do him great service Rh