Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/457

sure, your grace is not, no not so much as to be a maid of honour. For I am certainly informed, that you are neither a freethinker, nor can sell bargains; that you can neither spell, nor talk, nor write, nor think like a courtier. Then you pretend to be respected for qualities which have been out of fashion ever since you were almost in your cradle; that your contempt for a fine petticoat is an infallible mark of disaffection; which is farther confirmed by your ill taste for wit, in preferring two oldfashioned poets before Duck or Cibber. Besides, you spell in such a manner as no court lady can read, and write in such an oldfashioned style, as none of them can understand. You need not be in pain about Mr. Gay's stock of health. I promise you he will spend it all upon laziness, and run deep in debt by a winter's repose in town; therefore I entreat your grace will order him to move his chops less, and his legs more, for the six cold months, else he will spend all his money in physick and coach-hire. I am in much perplexity about your grace's declaration, of the manner in which you dispose what you call your love and respect, which, you say, are not paid to merit but to your own humour. Now, madam, my misfortune is, that I have nothing to plead but abundance of merit; and there goes an ugly observation, that the humour of ladies is apt to change. Now, madam, if I should go to Amesbury with a great load of merit, and your grace happen to be out of humour, and will not purchase my merchandise at the price of your respect, the goods may be damaged, and nobody else will take them off my hands. Besides, you have declared Mr. Gay to hold the first part, and I but the second; which is hard treat-

ment,