* i.e.  At the time this Letter was written.

I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not ‘die’:  I shall be much ‘grieved,’ if she doth; and the more because of mine ’unhappy misrepresentation’:  so will ‘you’ for the ‘same cause’; so will her ‘parents’ and ‘friends.’  They are very ‘rich’ and ‘very worthy’ gentlefolks.

But let me tell you, ‘by-the-by,’ that they had carried the matter against her ‘so far,’ that I believe in my heart they were glad to ‘justify themselves’ by ‘my report’; and would have been ‘less pleased,’ had I made a ‘more favourable one.’  And yet in ‘their hearts’ they ‘dote’ upon her.  But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be ‘friends with her,’ and ‘forgive her’; her ‘brother,’ as well as ’the rest.’

But their ‘cousin,’ Col.  Morden, ‘a very fine gentleman,’ had had such ‘high words’ with them, and they with him, that they know not how to ‘stoop,’ lest it should look like being frighted into an ‘accommodation.’  Hence it is, that ‘I’ have taken the greater liberty to ’press the reconciliation’; and I hope in ‘such good season,’ that they will all be ‘pleased’ with it:  for can they have a ‘better handle’ to save their ‘pride’ all round, than by my ‘mediation’?  And let me tell you, (inter nos, ‘betwixt ourselves,’) ‘very proud they all are.’

By this ‘honest means,’ (for by ‘dishonest ones’ I would not be ‘Archbishop of Canterbury,’) I hope to please every body; to be ‘forgiven,’ in the ‘first place,’ by ‘the lady,’ (whom, being a ’lover of learning’ and ‘learned men,’ I shall have great ‘opportunities’ of ‘obliging’; for, when she departed from her father’s house, I had but just the honour of her ‘notice,’ and she seemed ‘highly pleased’ with my ’conversation’;) and, ‘next’ to be ‘thanked’ and ‘respected’ by her ‘parents,’ and ‘all her family’; as I am (I bless God for it) by my ’dear friend’ Mr. John Harlowe:  who indeed is a man that professeth a ’great esteem’ for ‘men of erudition’; and who (with ‘singular delight,’ I know) will run over with me the ‘authorities’ I have ‘quoted,’ and ‘wonder’ at my ‘memory,’ and the ‘happy knack’ I have of recommending ’mine own sense of things’ in the words of the ‘greatest sages of antiquity.’

Excuse me, my good friend, for this ‘seeming vanity.’  The great Cicero (you must have heard, I suppose) had a ‘much greater’ spice of it, and wrote a ‘long letter begging’ and ‘praying’ to be ‘flattered.’  But if I say ‘less of myself’ than other people (who know me) ‘say of me,’ I think I keep a ‘medium’ between ‘vanity’ and ‘false modesty’; the latter of which oftentimes gives itself the ‘lie,’ when it is ‘declaring of’ the ‘compliments,’ that ‘every body’ gives it as its due:  an hypocrisy, as well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.