The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 18/Letter from Unknown Person to Jonathan Swift - 5

by Unknown Person

FROM AN UNKNOWN LADY.

CASTLETOWN,⁠

EXCUSE a stranger's address; nothing but the opinion I have of your generosity and humanity could encourage me to lay before you the enclosed poem, being the product of a woman's pen^[1]. I see the severe strokes you lay on the faulty part of our sex, from which number I do not pretend to exempt myself; yet venture to desire your judgment of this little unfinished piece, which I send you without giving myself the leisure to correct it, willing that your hand should bestow the last beauties. The muse is my best companion; and if you compassionate the desolate, permit me this satisfaction, since a book and a lonely walk are all the gratifications I afford my senses, though not dulled with years. I must entreat you to throw away two or three lines in answer to this; and beg leave to conceal my name, till I have the honour of writing to you again; which, if you will allow, I shall trouble you with a view of several sketches that I writ occasionally, and will no longer conceal the name of, honoured sir, your most humble servant,

M. M.

Sir, direct to Mrs. Mary Moran, at Castletown, near Gorey, in the county of Wexford.

1. The poem is lost.