Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/439

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DR. SWIFT.
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that your frowns make my life unsupportable. You have taught me to distinguish, and then you leave me miserable. Now, all I beg is, that you will for once counterfeit (since you cannot otherwise) that indulgent friend you once were, till I get the better of these difficulties.





SIR,
TRIM, OCT. 30, 1714.


I WAS to wait on you the other day, and was told by your servant that you are not to be seen till toward evening, which at the distance I am at this time of the year, cannot easily be compassed. My principal business was to let you know, that since my last return from England many persons have complained to me, that I suffered a conventicle to be kept in my parish, and in a place where there never was any before. I mentioned this to your nephew Rowley in Dublin, when he came to me with this message from you; but I could not prevail with him to write to you about it. I have always looked upon you as an honest gentleman, of great charity and piety in your way; and I hope you will remember at the same time, that it becomes you to be a legal man, and that you will not promote or encourage, much less give a beginning to, a thing directly contrary to the law. You know the dissenters in Ireland are suffered to have their conventicles only by connivance, and that only in places where they for-

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merly