Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/336

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LETTERS TO AND FROM

phical spectacles which you advise me to, will tell me that I can live on fifty pounds a year (wine excluded, which my bad health forces me to) but I cannot endure that otium should be sine dignitate. My lord, what I would have said of fame, is meant of fame which a man enjoys in his life; because I cannot be a great lord, I would acquire what is a kind of subsidium, I would endeavour that my betters should seek me by the merit of something distinguishable, instead of my seeking them. The desire of enjoying it in aftertimes is owing to the spirit and folly of youth: but with age we learn to know the house is so full, that there is no room for above one or two at most in an age, through the whole world. My lord, I hate and love to write to you, it gives me pleasure, and kills me with melancholy. The d take stupidity, that it will not come to supply the want of philosophy.






I AM earnestly desired by some worthy friends of mine, to write to your lordship in favour of the bearer, Mr. Moore, minister of Clonmel, who will have the honour to present this letter to your lordship. Those rectorial tithes of Clonmel were granted to the church by letters patents from king Charles the second, with the perfect knowledge and full approbation of your great ancestor, the first duke of Ormond, then lord

lieutenant