The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/From Elizabeth Germain to Jonathan Swift - 16
FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.
I AM extreme glad to hear you are got well again; and I do assure you, it was no point of ceremony made me forbear writing, but the downright fear of being troublesome. If you have got off your deafness, that is a happiness I doubt poor lady Suffolk will never have; for she does not mend, if she does not grow rather worse. But we ladies are famous for straining our voices upon the bad occasion of anger: and sure then it is hard if it is not more agreeable to do it for the sake of friendship. By the histories I hear from Ireland, Bettesworth, in the midst of your illness, did not think your pen lay idle[1]; but this good you had from it, that such a troublesome fellow made your friends and neighbours show they could exert themselves for your sake. Mrs. Floyd has passed this winter rather better than the last; but cold weather is a great enemy of hers; and when you see her, I fear you will find, that though the goodness of the composition will always hold, yet so many winters have taken the beauty of it entirely off. It grows now near the time, that I have hopes you will soon part with my duke and duchess. I always used to be her doctor; I wish you would allow me to be yours, and take my advice, and try how the change of air would mend your constitution; but, I fear you will not. However, God bless you; and adieu.
- ↑ About this time, an attempt was made to repeal the Test Act in Ireland; and the dissenters, on this occasion, affected to call themselves brother protestants, and fellow christians, with the members of the established church. This the dean made the subject of a short copy of verses, in which there is a passage, that so provoked one Bettesworth, a lawyer, and member of the Irish parliament, that he swore to revenge himself, either by maiming, or murdering the author; and for this purpose, he engaged his footman, with two ruffians, to secure the dean wherever he could be found. As soon as this oath and attempt of Bettesworth were known, thirty of the nobility and gentry of St. Patrick's, waited upon the dean in form, and presented a paper, subscribed with their names; in which, they solemnly engaged, in behalf of themselves and the rest of the liberty, to defend his person and fortune as the friend and benefactor of his country.