The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Elizabeth Germain to Jonathan Swift - 3

by Elizabeth Germain

FROM LADY ELIZABETH GERMAIN.

FEB. 23, 1730-31.

NOW were you in vast hopes you should hear no more from me, I being slow in my motions: but do not flatter yourself; you began the correspondence, set my pen a going, and God knows when it will end; for I had it by inheritance from my father, ever to please myself when I could; and though I do not just take the turn my mother did of fasting and praying; yet to be sure that was her pleasure too, or else she would not have been so greedy of it. I do not care to deliver your message this great while to lieutenant Head, he having been dead these two years. And though he had, as you say, a head, I loved him very well; but, however, from my dame Wadgar's^[1] first impression, have ever had a natural antipathy to spirits.

I have not acquaintance enough with Mr. Pope, which I am sorry for, and expect you should come to England, in order to improve it. If it was the queen, and not the duke of Grafton, that picked out such a laureat^[2], she deserves his poetry in her praises.

Your friend Mrs. Barber has been here. I find she has some request; but neither you nor she has yet let it out to me what it is: for, certainly you cannot mean That by subscribing to her book; if so, I shall be mighty happy to have you call That a favour; for surely there is nothing so easy as what one can do one's self, nor any thing so heavy as what one must ask other people for; though I do not mean by this, that I shall ever be unwilling, when you require it; yet shall be much happier, when it is in my own power to show, how sincerely I am my old friend's most faithful humble servant,

E. GERMAIN.

Mrs. Lloyd is much yours; but dumber than ever, having a violent cold.

1. The deaf housekeeper at lord Berkeley's.
2. Colley Cibber.