MY sister told me you was pleased (when she was here) to wonder I did so seldom write to you. I .... been so kind to impute it neither to ill mann .... respect. I always .... thought that sufficient from one who has always been but too troublesome to you. Besides, I know your aversion to impertinence, and God knows so very private a life as mine can furnish a letter with little else, for I often am two or three months without seeing any body beside the family; and now my sister is gone, I am likely to be more solitary than before. I am still to thank you for your care in my testimonium; and it was to very good purpose, for I never was more satisfied than in the behaviour of the university of Oxford to me. I had all the civilities I could wish for, and so many .... favours, that I am ashamed to have been more obliged in a few weeks to strangers, than ever I was in seven years to Dublin college. I am not to take orders till the king gives me a prebend; and sir William Temple, though he promises me the certainty of it, yet is less forward than I could wish, because (I suppose) he believes I shall leave him, and, upon some accounts, he thinks me a little ne-
