The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Henry St. John to Jonathan Swift - 18

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The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12
(1727)
by Henry St. John, edited by Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols, John Boyle, Patrick Delany, John Hawkesworth, Deane Swift, William Bowyer, John Birch, and George Faulkner

From lord Bolingbroke

From the same

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1554487The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12
— From lord Bolingbroke1727Henry St. John

FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE.

SATURDAY, AT POPE'S, JUNE 24, 1727.

I AM going to London, and intend to carry this letter, which I will give you if I see you, and leave for you if I do not see you.

There would not be common sense in your going into France at this juncture, even if you intended to stay there long enough to draw the sole pleasure and profit, which I propose you should have in the acquaintance I am ready to give you there. Much less ought you to think of such an unmeaning journey, when the opportunity for quitting Ireland for England is, I believe, fairly before you. To hanker after a court is fit for men with blue ribbands, pompous titles, and overgrown estates. It is below either you or me; one of whom never made his fortune, and the other's turned rotten at the very moment it grew ripe. But, without hankering, without assuming a suppliant dependant's air, you may spend in England all the time you can be absent from Ireland, & faire la guerre à l'oeil. There has not been so much inactivity as you imagine; but I cannot answer for consequences. Adieu.

If you can call on me to morrow morning in your way to church, about ten o'clock, you will find me just returning to Cranford from the Pall mall.

I shall be returned again to London on Monday evening.