pleasure of thinking of you, yet I sweat to assure you how much I am, dear sir, your ever obliged and obedient humble servant,
FROM THE EARL OF ORRERY TO DEANE SWIFT, ESQ.
I AM much obliged to you for the full, though melancholy, account you have sent me of my ever honoured friend. It is the more melancholy to me, as I have heard him often lament the particular misfortune incident to human nature, of an utter deprivation of senses many years before a deprivation of life. I have heard him describe persons in that condition, with a liveliness and a horrour, that on this late occasion have recalled to me his very words. Our litany, methinks should have an addition of a particular prayer against this most dreadful misfortune. I am sure mine shall. The bite of a mad dog (a most tremendous evil) ends soon in death; but the effects of his loss of memory may last even to the longest age of man; therefore I own my friendship for him has now changed my thoughts and wishes into the very reverse of what they were, I rejoice to hear he grows lean. I am sorry to hear his appetite is good. I was glad when there seemed an approaching mortification in his eyelid. In one word, the man I wished to live the longest I wish the
