Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/99

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DR. SWIFT.
87


REVEREND SIR,
DUBLIN, SEPT. 16, 1710.


I RECEIVED your's by the last packets, of September the ninth; and because you have missed the two bishops, I send you, with this, the papers relating to the first-fruits, and twentieth parts. I send them in two bundles, being too big for one letter. The bishops, so far as I can learn from the bishop of Ossory, have not made any step since I left London. I will endeavour to get you a letter from the bishops to solicit that affair. In the mean time, open the letter to the two bishops, and make use of it as occasion shall serve. The scheme I had laid for them is crossed by my lord treasurer's being out; though, perhaps, that would not have done; but her majesty's promise I depended on, and I had engaged the archbishop of York in it. When he comes to London, I will give you a letter to him. I can likewise find means, I believe, to possess my lord Shrewsbury and Mr. Harley, with the reasonableness of the affair. I am not courtier enough to know the properness of the thing; but I had once an imagination to attempt her majesty herself by a letter, modestly putting her in mind of the matter; and no time so proper, as when there is no lord lieutenant of Ireland, which perhaps may be soon; but this needs advice.

There are great men here as much out of hu-

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mour,