Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/250

238 I gave James Doyl two crowns, and a strict order to take care of [] gray colt, which I desire you will second.

I had a perfect summer journey, and if I had staid much longer, I should have certainly had a winter one, which, with weak horses and bad roads, would have been a very unpleasant thing.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1738.

OCTOR Thomas Sheridan died at Rathfarnam, the tenth of October 1738, at three of the clock in the afternoon: his diseases were a dropsy and asthma. He was doubtless the best instructor of youth in these kingdoms, or perhaps in Europe; and as great a master of the Greek and Roman languages. He had a very fruitful invention, and a talent for poetry. His English verses were full of wit and humour, but neither his prose nor verse sufficiently correct: however, he would readily submit to any friend who had a true taste in prose or verse. He has left behind him a very great collection, in several volumes, of stories, humorous, witty, wise, or some way useful, gathered from a vast number of Greek, Roman, Italian, Spanish, French, and English writers. I believe I may have seen about thirty, large enough to make as many moderate books in octavo. But among these extracts, there were many not worth regard; for five in six, at least, were of little use or entertainment. He was (as it is frequently the case in