Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/389

Rh

SIR,

WO days ago I had the very great pleasure to hear from Mr. Swift you were well. The acknowledgments he professes in his letters to the dean and me of your extraordinary civilities to him, make me perfectly ashamed to think how ill I shall acquit myself by only being able to say I most sincerely thank you. What an opportunity have you laid in my way of saying a thousand fine things on this subject; and yet I can only tell you (what you already know to be a great truth), that you have acted in this as you do in every thing, friendly, politely, and genteelly. All the return I can make, is to give you farther room to exercise a virtue which great minds only feel, that of doing good to an ingenuous worthy honest gentleman. The person I mean is counsellor Aulay; one of those who stand candidates for member of parliament to represent the university of Dublin, in the place of Dr. Coghill deceased. The dean of St. Patrick's appears openly for him; and I have his leave and command to tell you, if you can do Mr. Aulay a piece of friendship on this occasion with any person of distinction in England, he will receive the favour as done to himself. After I have mentioned the dean, how trifling will it be to speak of myself? and yet I most earnestly entreat your interest in this affair; and for this reason, Rh