Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/156

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120
THE LIFE

In a few weeks after, he writes thus: "I went to Mr. Addison, and dined with him at his lodgings; I had not seen him these three weeks. We are grown common acquaintance, yet what have I not done for his friend Steele? Mr. Harley reproached me the last time I saw him, that to please me he would be reconciled to Steele, and had promised and appointed to see him, and that Steele never came. Harrison, whom Mr. Addison recommended to me, I have introduced to the secretary of state, who has promised me to take care of him. And I have represented Addison himself so to the ministry, that they think and talk in his favour, though they hated him before. Well, he is now in my debt, and there's an end; and I had never the least obligation to him, and there's another end."

In the following year, May, 1711, he says, "Steele has had the assurance to write to me, that I would engage my lord treasurer to keep a friend of his in employment." And in his Journal of July following, he says, "Mr. Addison and I have at last met again. I dined with him and Steele to day at young Jacob Tonson's. Mr. Addison and I talked as usual, and as if we had seen one another yesterday; and Steele and I were very easy, although I wrote him a biting letter, in answer to one of his, where he desired me to recommend a friend of his to lord treasurer." In the year 1712, we find he had brought Addison so far about as to dine with lord Bolingbroke. In his Journal of that year, he says, "Addison and I, and some others, dined with lord Bolingbroke, and sate with him till twelve. We were very civil, but yet, when we grew warm, we talked in a friendly manner

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