Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/175

Rh to draw from him, upon an application which I made to him to direct me in the study of history. You will probably have seen that summary review, which is in a collection of letters upon history, which he did me the honour to write me. It is but a sketch of the work he had proposed to himself; but it is the sketch of lord Bolingbroke. He will probably have told you, that those letters were by his direction delivered up by me to Mr. Pope, who burnt, as he told me, the manuscripts, and printed off, by a private press, some very few copies, which were to be considered still as manuscripts, one of which Mr. Pope kept, and sent another to lord Bolingbroke. Sir William Wyndham, lord Bathurst, lord Marchmont, Mr. Murray, and Mr. Lyttelton, I think, had each one. I do not remember to have been told of any copies given, except to myself, who have always preserved mine, as I would a MS. which was not my own, observing not only the restrictions which lord Bolingbroke himself had recommended to me, but securing likewise, as far as I could, even in case of my death, that this work should never become publick from that copy, which is in my possession. I enlarge upon this, because I think myself particularly obliged, out of regard to lord Bolingbroke, to give this account of that work to the person whom he has intrusted with all his writings, in case you might not have known this particularity. And at the same time I think it my duty, to the memory of lord Bolingbroke, to myself, and to the world too, to say something more to you in relation of this work.

It is a work, sir, which will instruct mankind, and do honour to its author; and yet I will take upon me Rh