the story of Chiron, governor, or, which is the same thing, chief minister to Achilles, who was half man and half brute; which, as Machiavel observes, all good governors of princes ought to be. But I am at the end of my line, and my lines. This is without a cover, to save money, and plain paper, because the gilt is so thin it will discover secrets between us. In a little room for words, I assure you of my being, with truest respect, madam, your most obedient humble servant, TO THE SAME *. MADAM, My correspondents have informed me, that your ladyship has done me the honour to answer several objections that ignorance, malice, and party have made to my Travels, and been so charitable as to justify the fidelity and veracity of the author. This zeal you have shown for truth calls for my particular thanks, and at the same time encourages me to beg you would continue your goodness to me, by reconciling me to the maids of honour, whom, they say, I have most grievously offended. I am so stupid as not to find out how I have disobliged them. Is there any harm in a young lady's reading of romances? Or did I make use of an improper engine to extinguish a fire that was kindled by a maid of *This letter. must have been written about the end of the year 1726. E 3 honour? honour? And I will venture to affirm, that if ever the young ladies of your court should meet with a man of as little consequence in this country as I was in Brobdingnag, they would use him with as much contempt; but I submit myself and my cause to your better judgment, and beg leave to lay the crown of Lilliput at your feet, as a small acknowledgement of your favour to my book and person. I found it in the corner of my waistcoat pocket, into which I thrust most of the valuable furniture of the royal apartment when the palace was on fire, and by mistake brought it with me into England; for I very honestly restored to their majesties all their goods that I knew were in my possession. May all courtiers imitate me in that, and my being, madam, &c, MADAM, TO THE SAME. TWICKENHAM, JULY 9, 1727, BETWEEN CHURCH AND DINNER TIME. MR. R. Gay, by your commands, as he says, showed me a letter to you from an unfortunate lady, one Mrs. Pratt, whose case I know very well, and pity very much; but I wonder she would make any mention of me, who am almost a stranger to you, farther than your goodness led you a little to distinguish me. I have often told Mrs. Pratt, that I had not the least interest with the friend's friend's friend of any body in power; on the contrary, I have been used like a dog for a dozen years, by every soul soul who was able to do it, and were but sweepers about a court. I believe you will allow that I know courts well enough, to remember, that a man must have got many degrees above the power of recommending himself, before he should presume to recommend another, even his nearest relation; and, for my own part, you may be sure that I will never venture to recommend a mouse to Mrs. Cole's cat, or a shoe cleaner to your meanest domestick. But you know too well already how very injudicious the general tribe of wanters are. I told Mrs. Pratt, that if she had friends, it were best to solicit a pension; but it seems she had mentioned a place. I can only say, that when I was about courts, the best lady there had some cousin, or near dependant, whom she would be glad to recommend for an employment, and therefore would hardly think of strangers: For I take the matter thus; that a pension may possibly be got by commiseration, but great personal favour is required for an employment. There are, madam, thousands in the world, who, if they saw your dog use me kindly, would, the next day, in a letter, tell me of the delight they heard I had in doing good; and being assured that a word of mine to you would do any thing, desire my interest to speak to you, to speak to the speaker, to speak to sir Robert Walpole, to speak to the king, &c. Thus wanting people are like drowning people, who lay hold of every reed or bulrush in their way. One place I humbly beg for myself, which is in your gift, if it be not disposed of; I mean the perquisite of all the letters and petitions you receive, which, being generaily of fair, large, strong paper, I can E 4 I can sell to good advantage to the bandbox and trunk makers, and I hope will annually make a pretty comfortable penny. I hear, while I was at church, Mr. Pope writ to you upon the occasion of Mrs. Pratt's letter; but they will not show me what is writ: Therefore I will not trust them, but resolved to justify myself; and they shall not see this. I pray God grant you patience, and preserve your eye sight; but confine your memory to the service of your royal mistress, and the happiness of your truest friends, and give you a double portion of your own spirit to distinguish them. I am, with the truest respect, madam, your most obedient and most obliged humble servant, JONATH, SWIFT. MADAM, TO THE SAME. TWICKENHAM, AUG. 19, 1727; ABOUT two hours before you were born I got my giddiness, by eating a hundred golden pippins at a time at Richmond; and when you were four years and a quarter old, bating two days, having made a fine seat about twenty miles farther in Surrey, where I used to read and there I got my deafness; and these two friends have visited me, one or other, every year since, and being old acquaintance, have now thought fit to come together. So much for the calamities calamities wherein I have the honour to resemble you; and you see your sufferings are but children in comparison of mine; and yet, to show my philosophy, I have been as cheerful as Scarron. You boast, that your disorders never made you peevish. Where is the virtue, when all the world was peevish on your account, and so took the office out of your hands? Whereas I bore the whole load myself, no body caring three pence what I suffered, or whether I were hanged or at ease. I tell you my philosophy is twelve times better than yours; for I can call witnesses that I bear half your pains, beside all my own, which are in themselves ten times greater. Thus have I most fully answered your queries. I wish the poison were in my stomach (which may be very probable, considering the many drugs I take), if I remember to have mentioned that word in my letter. But ladies who have poison in their eyes, may be apt to mistake in reading *.-O! I have found it out; the word person I suppose was written like poison.Ask all the friends I write to, and they will attest this mistake to be but a trifle in my way of writing, and could easily prove it if they had any of my letters to show. I make nothing of mistaking Untoward for Howard; wellpull, for Walpole; knights of a share, for knights of a shire; monster, for minister; in writing speaker, I put an n for a p; and a hundred such blunders, which cannot be helped, while I have a hundred oceans rolling in my ears, into which no sense has been poured this fortnight; and therefore if I write nonsense, I can assure you it is genius, and not borrowed. See Mrs. Howard's letter, in vol. XII, p. 246. Thus |