TO DR. SHERIDAN.
DUBLIN, JUNE 5, 1736.
YOU must pay your groat (as if you had been drunk last night) for this letter, because I am neither acquainted with any frank cur, nor the of frank king. I am glad you have got the piles, because it is a mark of health, and a strong constitution. I believe what you say of the legion-club poem; for it plainly appears a work of a legion-club, for I hear there are fifty different copies; but what is that to me? And you are in the right, that they are not treated according to their merit. You never writ so regular in your life, and therefore when you write to me, always take care to have the piles; I mean any piles, except those of lime and stone, and yet piles are not so bad as the stone. I find you intend to be here (by your date) in a dozen days hence. The room shall be ready for you, though I shall never have you in a morning, or at dinner, or in an evening; at all other times I shall be pestered with you. John R (for he does not deserve the name of Jack) is gone to his six miles off country seat for the summer. I admire at your bill of 10l. odd; for I thought your first was double: or is it an additional one? When you satisfy me, I will send down to him with a vengeance: although except that damned vice of avarice, he is a very agreeable man. As to your venison, vain is one who ex-
pects
