Jump to content

Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/166

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
154
LETTERS TO AND FROM


at my elbow assures me that the lady is altogether worthy to be your wife. I therefore command you both (if I live so long) to attend me at the deanery the day after you land; where Mrs. Precipitate, alias Whiteway, says I will give you a scandalous dinner. I suppose you will see your governor my old friend John Barber, whom I heartily love; and so you are to tell him. I am, dear sir, your most obedient and obliged servant,






DEAR SIR,
DUBLIN, OCT. 1, 1745.


THE bank note for one hundred guineas came safe to hand. Enclosed you have part of the "Advice to Servants." I wish I could get franks to send it in. Fix your day of publication, and I will wait until you are ready, that we may both come out the same day. I think the middle of November will do very well, as your city as well as Dublin, will be full at that time. I shall finish the volume with a Cantata[1]

of

  1. Dr. Beattie, after censuring the practice of what he calls illicit imitation, observes, that "this abuse of a noble art did not escape the satire of Swift; who, though deaf to the charms of musick, was not blind to the absurdity of musicians. He recommended it to Dr. Echlin, an ingenious gentleman of Ireland, to compose a cantata in ridicule of this puerile mimickry. Here we have motions imitated, which are the most inharmonious, and the least connected with human affections, as the trotting, ambling, and

" galloping