Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/46

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LETTERS TO AND FROM

hope you will pardon the impertinences of your poor sister, whose brain may be reasonably thought turned with all she has met with. But nothing will hinder her from being, as long as she lives, most sincerely your very humble servant, and faithful friend,




FROM MR. PRIOR.


SIR,
WESTMINSTER, MAY 4, 1720.


FROM my good friend the dean I have two letters before me, of what date I will not say, and I hope you have forgot, that call out for vengeance; or, as other readings have it, for an answer. You told me in one of them, you had been pursued with a giddy head; and I presume you judged by my silence, that I have laboured under the same distemper. I do not know why you have not buried me as you did Partridge, and given the wits of the age, the Steeles and Addisons, a new occasion of living seven years upon one of your thoughts. When you have finished the copy of verses which you began in England, our writers may have another hint, upon which they may dwell seven years longer.


Are you Frenchman enough to know how a Gascon sustains his family for a week?


Dimanche, une Esclanche;

Lundi, froide et Salade;

Mardi,