Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/150

138 I dare not ride so far as to be a night from : and yet when the weather is fair, I seldom fail to ride ten or a dozen miles. Mr. Faulkner will be able to give you a true journal of my life; that I generally dine at home and alone, and have not two houses in this great kingdom, where I can get a bit of meat twice a year. That I very seldom go to church for fear of being seized with a fit of giddiness in the midst of the service. I hear you have likewise some ailments to struggle with, yet I am a great deal leaner than you: but I have one advantage, that wine is good for me, and I drink a bottle to my own share every day, to bring some heat into my stomach. Dear Mr. alderman, what a number of dear and great friends have we buried, or seen driven to exile since we came acquainted? I did not know, till six months after, that my best friend, my lady Masham, was gone. I would be glad to know whether her son be good for any thing, because I much doubted when I saw him last. Tell me, do you make constant use of exercise? It is all I have to trust to, though not in regard to life but to health: I know nothing wherein years make so great a change, as in the difference of matter in conversation and writing. My thoughts are wholly taken up in considering the best manner I ought to die in, and how to dispose of my poor fortune for the best publick charity. But in conversation I trifle more and more every day, and I would not give three pence for all I read, or write, or think, in the compass of a year.

Well, God bless you, and preserve your life as long as you can reasonably desire. I take my age with less mortification, because, if I were younger, I should probably outlive the liberty of England, which,