Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/257

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DR. SWIFT.
243


the world, I submit it wholly to the correction of your pens.

I entreat therefore one of you would descend so far, as to write two or three lines to me of your pleasure upon it: which as I cannot but expect it from gentlemen who have so well shown, upon so many occasions, that greatest character of scholars in being favourable to the ignorant; so, I am sure, nothing at present can more highly oblige me, or make me happier. I am, gentlemen, your ever most humble, and most admiring servant,





TO VARINA[1].


MADAM,
APRIL 29, 1696.


IMPATIENCE is the most inseparable quality of a lover, and indeed of every person who is in pursuit of a design whereon he conceives his greatest happiness or misery to depend. It is the same thing in war, in courts, and in common business. Every one who hunts after pleasure, or fame, or fortune,

  1. Sister to Mr. Waryng, Swift's chamber-fellow at college. See Sheridan's Life of Swift, vol. I, p. 283. This letter was first printed in Mr. George Monck Berkeley's Literary Relicks, 1789. A second letter to Miss Waryng, May 4, 1700, has already appeared in vol. I, p. 278. Three other letters, directed to her at Belfast, are existing; though we are unable to give more than their dates; December 20, 1695, from Dublin; June 29, 1696, and August 28, 1697, from Moor Park.
R 2
is