Complains of the state of his health, xx. 103, 114, 157.
Rallies Mr. Pulteney humourously on his recommending to him a trip to England for his health, xx. 91.
1738. Met with great difficulties in his intended plan of an hospital, xx. 181; on which subject he petitioned the house of lords, 145.
Sends Miss Richardson a beautiful diamond ring, xx. 198. Advertised to lend 2000l. on good security, 182
1739. Solicits the earl of Arran to resign the claim made by him to the tithes of the rectory of Clonmel, xx. 238.
1740. His certificate to a discarded servant, xx. 242.
His understanding was so far impaired, that he was obliged to be put under the care of guardians, i. 316.
His epigram on the magazine at Dublin, the last thing he wrote, xi. 367.
1742. The base treatment he received from Dr. Wilson, xx. 265. 1745. October 19. Died in the 78th year of his age, i. 316. His will, ii. 235.
Inscription on his monument, i. 317.
Epitaph proposed for him, xi. 377.
Inscription on a column at Neale, in Ireland, where annual fes- tivals were instituted to his memory, xx. 270.
On a compartment of his monument in College Green, Dublin, with an epigram occasioned by it, xi. 382.
Under his picture at Oxford, xx. 297.
Verses on him, xi, 368, 382.
His verses on himself, x. 116.
On his own Death, xi. 258.
Young Lady's Complaint for his stay in England, xi. 45. On his Deafness, xi. 348, 349.
Verses on his birth-day, xi. 282, 283, 343,363, 367. xviii. 227. His character, i. 221, ii. 216, 218, 245, 255. xx. 297.
Character of his writings by Dr. Johnson, ii. 247. See also i. 59.
His charities, i. 302. ii. 88, 169. xiii. 270. xix, 41, 121. xx. 61, 153.
Strength of his memory, i. 79.
Raillery his talent, which was a bar to his farther preferment, xviii. 98.
Fond of walking, and therefore never wore boots, xix. 179. His political principles, i. 110, 167. vi. 12, 281. xviii. 243. Their consequences, xiii. 271. xviii. 100.
His epistolary correspondence, prayers, and sermons. See Letters, Prayers, Sermons.
Was a constant advocate for the whigs, under the Tory ad- mistration, xiii. 271. xvi. 12. xviii. 22. A great support to poor families, by lending them money without interest, xiii. 272.
His account of his own behaviour to the earl of Oxford, xx.
Treated the scribblers against him with sovereign contempt, iv. 217.
The requisites he expected in a wife, xv. 26, 27.
List of desiderata in his Works, i. 37.
Received memorial presents from several great personages. From Mr. Addison, his Travels, with an elegant inscription, i. 120. A paper book, finely bound, with a polite epistle in verse, from Lord Orrery, xi. 282. A silver standish, with verses, from Dr. Delany, 283. A snuff-box, from General Hill, xv. 232. xxii. 136. A writing table from Lady Orkney,
xv. 246. Two pictures from the duchess of Ormond, 253. xxii. 159. A case of instruments from Lady Johnson, xvii. 262. Reminded lord treasurer of the promise of his picture, xvi. 281. At that lord's death, demanded the picture from his son as a legacy, xvii. 9. Received a valuable screen from Mrs. Pratt, 25. A picture of Charles I. from Dr. Stop- ford, 55, 75. A ring from Mrs. Howard, 83. SWIFTIANA-Mr. Wotton actually busied himself to illustrate a work which he laboured to condemn, adding force to a satire pointed against himself, as captives were bound to the chariot wheel of the victor, and compelled to increase the pomp of his triumph, whom they had in vain attempted to defeat, iii. 27. The fattest fellow in a crowd, the first to complain of it, 55. Satirists use the public as pedants do a naughty boy ready horsed for discipline; first expos- tulate, then plead the necessity of the rod, and conclude every pe- riod with a lash, 56. Mistaken in supposing, that all weeds must sting, because nettles do, ibid. Wits are like razors, which are most apt to cut those who use them when they have lost their edge, 57. They, whose teeth are too rotten to bite, best qualified to re- venge the defect with their breath, ibid. The world soonest pro- voked to praise by lashes, as men to love, ibid. A pulpit of rotten wood a double emblem of a fanatic preacher, whose principal qua- lifications are, his inward light and his head full of maggots; and the two different fates of whose writings are, to be burnt or worm- eaten, 67. Wisdom is a Fox, which, after long hunting, must be dug out at last, 70; a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker and coarser coat, and its maggots are the best; or like a sack-posset, in which the deeper you go, it is the sweeter; or a hen, whose cackling must be valued and considered, because at- tended with an egg; or a nut, which, unless chosen with judgment, may cost a tooth, and pay with nothing but a worm, ibid. Con- science, like a pair of breeches, is a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, and is easily slipt down for the service of both, 79. A critic who reads only to censure, is as barbarous as a judge who should resolve to hang all that came before him, 91. Critics im- prove writers, as the Nauplians learned the art of pruning from an ass's browsing their vines, 96. Like a species of asses, formed with horns, and replete with gall, ibid. Like a serpent in India, found among the mountains where jewels grow, which has no teeth to bite, but its vomit, to which it is very much addicted, corrupts every thing it touches, 97. A critic in youth will be a critic in old age; and, like a whore and an alderman, never changes his title or his nature, ibid. Sets up with as little expense as a tailor, and, with like tools and abilities: the tailor's hell being the type of a critic's common place book, and his wit and learning are held forth by the goose; their weapons are near of a size, and as many of the one species go to a man, as of the other to make a scholar, 98. Their writings called the mirrors of learning, and, like the mirrors of the ancients, made of brass, without mercury, 99. The first re- snit of a critic's mind, like the fowler's first aim, the surest, ibid. He is carried to the noblest writers by instinct, as a rat to the best cheese, or a wasp to the fairest fruit, ibid. In the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently snarls most when there are fewest bones, 100. Some writers enclose their digressions one in another, like a nest of boxes, 115. Men in misfortune are like men in the dark, to whom all colours are alike, 124. Disputanta are for the most part like unequal scales, the gravity of one side advancing the lightness of the other, 128. Digressions in a hook are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own, and often subdue the natives, or drive
them into the most unfruitful corners, 131. Some know books as they do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their ac- quaintance; or by inspecting the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail; that slippery eel of sci- ence being held by it. 132. viii. 67. Arts are in a flying march, and more easily subdued by attacking them in the rear; and men catch knowledge by throwing their wit on the posteriors of a book, as boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails, iii. 132. The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot, ibid. Cant and vision are to the ear and eye what tick- ling is to the touch, 152. It is with human faculties as with liquors, the lightest will be ever at the top, 162. A fashionable reader is like a fly, which, when driven from a honeypot, will immediately, with very good appetite, alight and finish his meal on an excre- inent, 183. It is with writers as with wells, a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing at the bottom but dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass for wondrous deep, on no wiser a reason, than because it is wondrous dark, ibid. Satire is a glass, wherein beholders discover every body's face but their own, 202. Wit without knowledge is a sort of cream, which gathers in the night to the top, and by a skil- ful hand may be soon whipped into a froth; but, once scummed away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown to the hogs, ibid. Certain fortunetellers in North America read a man's destiny by peeping into his breech, 259. The absence of reason is usually supplied by some quality fitted to increase our natural vices, as a troubled stream reflects the image of an ill-sha- pen body not only larger, but more distorted, ix. 279. Writers of travels, like dictionary makers, are sunk into oblivion by the weight and bulk of those who come last, and therefore lie uppermost, 332. Opinions, like fashions, descend from those of quality down to the vulgar, where they are dropped and vanish, iv. 4. A prime genius attempting to write a history in a language which in a few years will scarce be understood, is like employing an excellent statuary to work upon mouldering stone, vi. 61. Epithets, when used in poe- try merely to fill up a line, are like stepping stones placed in a wide kennel; or like a heel-piece that supports a cripple; or like a bridge that joins two parishes; or like the elephants placed by geo- graphers in maps of Africa when they are at a loss for towns, xi. 312. The landed gentlemen, upon whose credit the funds were rais- ed during the war, were in the condition of a young heir, out of whose estates a scrivener receives half the rent for interest, and has a mortgage on the whole, v. 15. Lying is employed by the moderns for the gaining of power and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves for its loss; as animals use the same instruments to feed themselves when hungry, and to bite those that tread upon them, 19. The wings of falsehood, like those of a flying fish, are of no use but when moist, 21. Truth's attempting to equal the rapid progress of falsehood, is like a man's thinking of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or a physician's finding out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead, 23. Great changes affect com- monwealths, as thunder does liquors, by making the dregs fly up to the top, 94. The whigs owe all their wealth to wars and revo- lutions, as the girl at Bartholomew fair gets a penny by turning round with swords in her hand, 200. Changing a ministry is like repairing a building; a necessary work, but makes a dust, and disturbs the neighbourhood, 228. The whigs raise the spirits of their friends, recall their stragglers, and unite their numbers, by sound and impudence; as bees assemble and cling together at the
noise of brass, vi. 187. An author that puts words together with regard to their cadence, not their meaning, is like a fellow that nailed up maps, some sideling, others upside down, the better to ad- just them to the pannels, 189. A writer with a weak head and cor- rupt heart is like a hireling jade, dull and yet vicious, 199. After ten glorious campaigns, England (like the sick_man) was just ex- piring with all sorts of good symptoms, v.275. England, impover- ished by an expensive war, will have the comfort of seeing a few rags hung up in Westminster hall; and of boasting, as beggars do, that their grandfathers were rich and great, 317. This kingdom dieted its own healthy body into a consumption, by plying it with physic instead of food, 320. The Dutch securing to themselves part of the king of Spain's dominions, for whom they fought, and calling him to guaranty the treaty, is like the soldier who robbed the farmer of his poultry, and made him wait at table, vi. 14. With all its successes will be like the duke, who lost most of his winning at the groom-porter's by a sharper who swept it away into his hat, 16. Bishop Burnet's alarms about popery are like the watchman's thumps at your door, a proof that your door is fast, not that thieves are breaking in, viii. 129. Taking off the test in Ireland to make it go down the better in England, is like giving a new medicine to a dog before it is prescribed to a human creature, xiii. 113; and was as ill policy as cutting down in a garden the only hedge which shel- ters from the north, xii. 5. The dissenters attending the bill against the clergy in a kind of triumph, are like the man, who, being kick- ed down stairs, comforted himself with seeing his friend kicked down after bim, xiii. 161. The English cram one syllable, and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened her mice after she had bit off their legs to prevent their running away, viii. 186. Objecting to the christian religion on account of any article which appears not agreeable to our own corrupted reason, is as wise as if a man, who dislikes one law of his country, should determine to obey no law at all, xiv, 21. The rich are, in troublesome times, often of no use but to be plundered, like some sort of birds, who are good for no- thing but their feathers, 97. Religion, like all other things, is soon- est put out of countenance by being ridiculed, 124. The vapid venom sprinkled over some paltry publications, like the dying im- potent bite of a trodden benumbed snake, may be nauseons and of fensive, but cannot be very dangerous, iv. 47. Plying an insipid worthless tract with grave and learned answers, is like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of being bruised, by its lit- tleness lodges under it unhurt, 48. Raillery, the finest part of con- versation, is frequently perverted to repartee, as an expensive fash- ion always produces some paltry imitation, viii. 52. To engage in a bank that has neither act of parliament, charter, nor lands to support it, is like sending a ship to sea without a bottom, xii. 28. In poetry, the smallest quantity of religion, like a single drop of malt liquor in claret, will muddy and discompose the brightest ge- ius, viii. 61. Philosophy, and other parts of learning, are as ne- cessary to a good poet, as a knowledge of the theory of light to a painter, 65. Flowers of wit should spring, as those in a garden de, from their own root and stem, without foreign assistance, 66, Bar- ren wits take in the thoughts of others, in order to draw forth their own, as dry pumps will not play till water is thrown into them, ibid. Abstracts, abridgments, &c. have the same use as burning glasses; they collect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's in- agination, 67. Authors are to be used like lobsters; you must look for the best meat in their tails, and lay the bodies back again in the dish, ibid. Those who read only to borrow, i. e. to steal, are like the cunning thieves who cut off the portmanteau from behind, without
staying to dive into the owner's pockets, ibid. A good poem may be tried like a sound pipkin; if it rings well upon the knuckle, it is without flaw, 68. A wise man makes even his diversions an improve- ment to him, like the inimitable management of the bee, which does the whole business of life at once, and at the same time both feeds, and works, and diverts itself, 70. An author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him, 73. The Dean's asso ciating indiscriminately with all parties occasioned his being used like the sober man with the drunken face; he had the scandal of the vice, without the satisfaction, xv. 68. As wounds of the body which bleed inwardly are the most fatal to it, so, in repentance, those of the mind are more destructive to the body of sin, xiv. 7. Ministers seldom give themselves the trouble of recording the im- portant parts of their own administration; like the masters of a puppetshow, despising those motions which fill common spectators with wonder and delight, vi. 266. Great breaches in government are like vices in a man, which seldom end but with himself, 353. When a minister grows enormously rich, the public is proportiona. bly poor; as, in a private family, the steward always thrives the fastest, when the lord is running out, xii. 293. In Wood's halfpence, the nation did not discover the serpent in the brass, but were ready to offer incense to it, xiv. 149. Some ale-sellers, when they have got a vogue for their liquor, think their credit will put off the worst they can buy, till their customers forsake them; as the drapers, in a general mourning, dye black their old damaged goods, sell them at double rates, and then complain that they are ready to starve by the continuance of the mourning, xii. 278. General methods laid down for improving the trade of Ireland, as absurd as if an empiric, knowing that exercise promoted health, should prescribe to his patient in the gout to walk ten miles, xiii. 63. Women revel on Indian poisons, as starlings grow fat with henbane, 63. The private virtues of a courtier, for want of room and time to operate, are (like old clothes) laid up in a chest, against a reverse of fortune; but (like them) unless sometimes turned and aired, are apt to be tarnished or moth-eaten, xiv. 246. Swift cured of loving England, as the fellow was of his ague, by getting himself whipped through the town, xvi. 116. Men of great parts unfortunate in the manage- ment of business, because they are apt to go out of the common road; as a blunt ivory knife divides a sheet of paper evenly, while a penknife often goes out of the crease, i. 144. xvi. 215. The Dutch are like a knot of sharpers among honest gentlemen, who think they un- derstand play, and are bubbled of their money, xix. 75. The inviting indigent foreigners into England, without having lands to give them, is putting them in the situation of children dropped at the doors of private persons, who become a burden to the parish, vii. 131. The nation no otherwise richer by such an importation, than a man can be said to be fatter by a wen, which intercepts the nourishment that should diffuse itself through the whole body, 132. A wise man ought to have money in his head, but not in his heart, xviii. 271. National corruption must be purged by national calamities, 290. Conversing only on one side generally gives our thoughts the same turn, just as the jaundice makes those that have it think all things yellow, iv. 277. The aversion of a discarded ministry to any go- vernment but their own is unalterable; like some rivers, that are said to pass through without mingling with the sea; though disap- pearing for a time, they arise the same, and never change their na ture, iv. 319. When those who have cast off all hope desire their impartial friends to embark with them against their prince, it is as absurd as if a man who was flying his country for having committed a murder, should desire all his acquaintance to accompany him, vi. 73. Bishop Fleetwood's sermon on the death of the duke of Glou-
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