know you have so good an opinion. Indeed any one whom you think worthy your trust, I shall think deserves mine, in a point I am ever so tender of.
I wish the very small opportunity I had of showing Mr. Swift, your son, my regards for him, had been greater; and I wish it now more, since he is become so near to you, for whom my respect runs hand in hand with my affection for the dean; and I cannot wish well for the one without doing so for the other.
I turn my mind all I can from the melancholy subject of your letter. May God Almighty alleviate your concern, and his complaints, as much as possible in this state of infirmities, while he lives; and may your tenderness, madam, prevent any thing after his death which may anywise depreciate his memory. I dare say nothing of ill consequence can happen from the commission given to Dr. King.
You see, madam, I write to you with absolute freedom, as becomes me to the friend of my friend, and to a woman of sense and spirit. I will say no more, that you may find I treat you with the same delicacy that you do me (and for which I thank you) without the least compliment: and it is none when I add, that I am, with esteem, madam your most obliged and most obedient servant,
TO
