Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/29

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DR. SWIFT.
17

I recommended to your friendship and acquaintance the bearer, Mr. de la Mar. His brother, now dead, has been with you in Ireland: and this gentleman deserves from me all the kindness my friends can show him. Adieu, dear sir, If I can serve you in any thing, command me always, for I am, with great esteem, your most humble and most obedient servant,





MADAM,
JANUARY 8, 1732-3.


ALTHOUGH I have but just received the honour of your ladyship's letter, yet, as things stand, I am determined, against my usual practice, to give you no respite, but to answer it immediately; because you have provoked me with your lady Suffolk. It is six years last spring since I first went to visit my friends in England, after the queen's death. Her present majesty heard of my arrival, and sent at least nine times to command my attendance before I would obey her, for several reasons not hard to guess[1]; and, among others, because I had heard her character from those who knew her well. At last I went, and she received me very graciously. I told her the first time, "That I was informed she loved to see odd persons; and that, having sent for a wild boy from Germany, she had a curiosity to see a wild

  1. It should be, "not hard to be guessed."
Vol. XIII.
C
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