The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 19/From David Mallet to Henry Hyde - 1
MY LORD,
I RECEIVED a very real pleasure, and at the same time a sensible concern, from the letter your lordship has honoured me with. Nothing could be more agreeable to me than the favourable opinion of one, whom I have long admired for every quality that enters into an estimable and an amiable character; but then nothing can occasion me more uneasiness, than not to be able to suppress that part of a work which you would have kept from publick view.
The book was printed off before your lordship's letter reached my hands; but this consideration alone would have appeared trifling to me. I apprehend, that I cannot, without being unfaithful to the trust reposed in me, omit or alter any thing in those works, which my lord Bolingbroke had deliberately prepared for the press, and I will publish no other. As to this in particular, his repeated commands to me were, that it should be printed exactly according to the copy be himself, in all the leisure of retirement, had corrected with that view.
Upon the whole, if your lordship should think it necessary to disclaim the reflections on Sacred History, by which I presume is meant some publick and authentick declaration, that your notions on this head differ entirely from those of your noble friend; even in this case I am sure you will do it with all the delicacy natural to your own disposition, and with all the tenderness to his memory, that the particular regard he always bore you can deserve.
I am, with the greatest respect,
My lord, &c.