Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/327

Rh a great abhorrence of her. It is true, since that time you have suffered very much by her encroachments upon your estate, but she never pretended to govern and direct you; and now you have drawn a new enemy upon yourself; for I think you may count upon all the ill offices she can possibly do you by her credit with her husband; whereas, if instead of openly declaring against her without any provocation, you had but sat still awhile, and said nothing, that gentleman would have lessened his severity to you out of perfect fear. This weakness of yours you call generosity; but I doubt there was more in the matter: in short, madam, I have good reasons to think you were betrayed to it by the pernicious counsel of some about you: for to my certain knowledge, several of your tenants and servants, to whom you have been very kind, are as arrant rascals as any in the country. I cannot but observe what a mighty difference there is, in one particular, between your ladyship and your rival. Having yielded up your person, you thought nothing else worth defending, and therefore you will not now insist upon those very conditions, for which you yielded at first. But your ladyship cannot be ignorant, that some years since, your rival did the same thing, and upon no conditions at all; nay this gentleman kept her as a miss, and yet made her pay for her diet and lodging. But, it being at a time when he had no steward, and his family out of order, she stole away, and has now got the trick very well known among the women of the town, to grant a man the favour over night, and the next day have the impudence to deny it to his face. But it is too late to reproach you with any former oversights, which cannot now be rectified. I know the matters