That
favour, my lord, is of itself sufficient to bind any grateful man to
a perpetual acknowledgment, and to all the future service which one
of my mean condition can be ever able to perform. May the Almighty
God return it for me, both in blessing you here and rewarding you
hereafter! I must not presume to defend the cause for which I now
suffer, because your lordship is engaged against it; but the more
you are so, the greater is my obligation to you for your laying
aside all the considerations of factions and parties to do an action
of pure disinterested charity. This is one amongst many of your
shining qualities which distinguish you from others of your rank.
But let me add a farther truth--that without these ties of
gratitude, and abstracting from them all, I have a most particular
inclination to honour you, and, if it were not too bold an
expression, to say I love you. It is no shame to be a poet, though
it is to be a bad one. Augustus Caesar of old, and Cardinal
Richelieu of late, would willingly have been such; and David and
Solomon were such.
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