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-
|
