Chapter XCVIII: Letter XCVI: To Mr. M

August 14, 1779.

YOU kindly gave me liberty to bring Mrs. S----: the proposal did honour to your heart--and credit to your judgement;--but an affair has rendered that part of your invitation inadmissible,--Now pox take bad quills--and bad pen-makers!--Sir, it was fifty pound to a bean-shell, but that you had had a blot as big as both houses of parliament in the very fairest, yea and handsomest, part of this epistle:--my pen, like a drunkard, sucks up more liquor than it can carry, and so of course disgorges it at random.--I will that ye observe the above simile to be a good one--not the cleanliest in nature I own--but as pat to the purpose as dram-drinking to a bawd--or oaths to a serjeant of the guards--or--or--dullness to a Black-a-moor;--good--excessive good:--and pray what--(oh, this confounded pen!)--what may your Worship’s chief employ have been?--You have had your Devil’s dance--found yourself in a lazy fit--the ink-stand, &c. staring you full in the face--you yawned--stretched--and then condescended to scold me for omitting what properly, and according to strict rule, you should have done yourself a month ago.--Zounds!--God forgive us!----this thought oversets the patience--coat and lining--of your right trusty friend,

IGN. SANCHO.