Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/246

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238
CHARACTER OF MRS. HOWARD.

What part she may act hereafter in a larger sphere, as lady of the bedchamber to a great q—n (upon supposing the death of his present majesty[1], and of the earl of Suffolk, to whose title her husband succeeds) and in high esteem with a k—g, neither she nor I can foretel. My own opinion is natural and obvious; that her talents as a courtier will spread, enlarge, and multiply to such a degree, that her private virtues, for want of room and time to operate, will be laid up clean (like clothes in a chest) to be used and put on, whenever satiety, or some reverse of fortune, or increase of ill health (to which last she is subject) shall dispose her to retire. In the mean time, it will be her wisdom to take care that they may not be tarnished or moth eaten, for want of airing and turning at least once a year.

    H— for not loving herself so well as she does her friends; for those she makes happy, but not herself. There is a sort of sadness about her, which grieves me, and which I have learned by experience, will increase upon an indolent (I will not say an affected) resignation to it. It will dose in men, and much more in women, who have a natural softness which sinks them even when reason does not." Pope, Letters to a Lady, page 76.N.

  1. George the First.