past; and you will never mend in my opinion. But really, brother, you have a sort of shuffle in your gait; and now I have said the worst that your most mortal enemy could say of you with truth." And twelve years later, in complete forgetfulness, I am sure, of Swift's letter, and not in any competition with his characteristic humour, Arbuthnot echoed the compliment. "I had a great deal of discourse," said he, "with your friend, her Royal Highness. She insisted upon your wit and good conversation. I told her Royal Highness, that was not what I valued you for, but for being a sincere honest man, and speaking truth when others were afraid to speak it."
It has been said by Swift's enemies that he slunk away from his friends, and the truth is that the links of the chain which bound the five together were never weakened. Hear what Bolingbroke wrote to Swift after twenty years of companionship. "I loved you almost twenty years ago: I thought of you as well as I do now, better was beyond the power of conception, or to avoid an equivoque, beyond
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