Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/208

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
200
DR. SWIFT’S

those seven apples? We have had much rain every day as well as you: 7l. 17s. 8d. old blunderer, not 18s. I have reckoned it 18 times. Hawkshaw's eight pounds is not reckoned: and if it be secure, it may lie where it is, unless they desire to pay it: so Parvisol may let it drop till farther orders; for I have put Mrs. Wesley's money into the bank, and will pay her with Hawkshaw's. —— I mean that Hawkshaw's money goes for an addition to MD, you know; but be good housewives. Bernage never comes now to see me; he has no more to ask: but I hear he has been ill. A pox on Mrs. South's affair; I can do nothing in it, but by way of assisting any body else that solicits it, by dropping a favourable word, if it comes in my way. Tell Walls I do no more for any body with my lord treasurer, especially a thing of this kind. Tell him I have spent all my discretion, and have no more to use. —— And so I have answered your letter fully and plainly And so I have got to the third side of my paper, which is more than belongs to you, young women. It goes to morrow, To nobody's sorrow. You are silly, not I; I'm a poet, If I had but, &c. —— Who's silly now? rogues and lasses, tinderboxes and buzzards. O Lord, I am in a high vein of silliness; methought I was speaking to dearest little MD face to face. There; so lads, enough for to night; to cards with the blackguards. Good night, my delight, &c.

Dec. 1. Pish, sirrahs, put a date always at the bottom of your letter as well as the top, that I may know when you send it; your last is of Nov. 3d, yet I had others at the same time written a fortnight after. Whenever you would have any money, send me word three weeks before, and in that time you

will