sciences has been of late, with a world of martial discipline, drawn into its close order, so that a view or a muster may be taken of it with abundance of expedition. For this great blessing we are wholly indebted to systems and abstracts, in which the modern fathers of learning, like prudent usurers, spent their sweat for the ease of us, their children. For labour is the seed of idleness, and it is the peculiar happiness of our noble age to gather the fruit.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

those wise reformers do not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other, or on themselves; especially when all this may be done without the least imaginable danger to their persons. And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if Christianity were once abolished, how could the freethinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find another subject so What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived calculated in all points whereon to display their abilities? of from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would, therefore, be never able to shine or distinguish themselves on any other subject? We are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgill for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials? What other subject through all art or nature could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorneth and distinguisheth the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, they would immediately have sunk into silence and oblivion.

A Meditation upon a Broomstick, according to the Style and Manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's Meditations.* This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; at length, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surely mortal man is a broomstick! nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriv Nor do I think it wholly groundless, or my fears ing condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the altogether imaginary, that the abolishing of Christianity proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the may perhaps bring the church in danger, or at least put axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, the senate to the trouble of another securing vote. I and left him a withered trunk; he then flies to art, desire I may not be misunderstood; I am far from preand puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an un-suming to affirm or think that the church is in danger at natural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that present, or as things now stand, but we know not how never grew on his head; but now should this our soon it may be so, when the Christian religion is repealed. broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those As plausible as this project seems, there may a dangerbirchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, ous design lurk under it. Nothing can be more notorious though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we than that the atheists, deists, Socinians, anti-trinitarians, should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial and other subdivisions of freethinkers, are persons of little judges that we are of our own excellences, and other zeal for the present ecclesiastical establishment. Their men's defaults! declared opinion is for repealing the sacramental test; they are very indifferent with regard to ceremonies; nor do they hold the jus divinum of episcopacy. Therefore this may be intended as one politic step towards altering the constitution of the church established, and setting up presbytery in its stead; which I leave to be further considered by those at the helm.

But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be-grovelling on the earth! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his brother-besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by.

Inconveniences likely to result from the Abolition of
Christianity.

I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are apt to murmur and be shocked at the sight of so many daggle-tail parsons, who happen to fall in their way, and offend their eyes; but at the same time,

* When chaplain to Lord Berkeley, Swift was accustomed to read to Lady Berkeley the Reflections or Meditations of Boyle. Growing weary of the task, he resolved to get rid of it in a way that might occasion some mirth in the family. Accordingly he inserted the above parody in the volume, and read it to the lady as a genuine production of Boyle's. The joke was successful: the witty chaplain was not asked to proceed any further with the Meditations. When some one said to Stella that the Dean must have loved Vanessa very much to write of her so beautifully, she replied, that it was well known the Dean could write beauti fully on a broomstick !

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And therefore if, notwithstanding all I have said, it shall still be thought necessary to have a bill brought in for repealing Christianity, I would humbly offer an amendment, that, instead of the word Christianity, may be put religion in general; which I conceive will much better answer all the good ends proposed by the projectors of it. For as long as we leave in being a God and his Providence, with all the necessary consequences which curious and inquisitive men will be apt to draw from such premises, we do not strike at the root of the evil, although we should ever so effectually annihilate the present scheme of the Gospel. For of what use is freedom of thought, if it will not produce freedom of action, which is the sole end, how remote soever in appearance, of all objections against Christianity? And therefore the freethinkers consider it a sort of edifice, wherein all the parts have such a mutual dependence on each other, that if you happen to pull out one single nail, the whole fabric must fall to the ground.

Diversions of the Court of Lilliput.

with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me all nations I have known, both for dexterity and mag. nificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed with a slender white thread extended about two feet, and twelve inches

from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little.

This diversion is only practised by those persons who are candidates for great employments and high favour at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens), five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to shew their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer,* is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the summerset several times together upon a trencher fixed on a rope which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par.

These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to shew their dexterity; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far, that there is hardly one of them who has not received a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured that, a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would infallibly have broke his neck, if one of the king's cushions that accidentally lay on the ground, had not weakened the force of his fall.+

one or more projectors, and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt in eight years more that he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them.

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewise shewed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation; which he justified to me by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider.

There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turning of the winds.

We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided.

There is likewise another diversion, which is only shewn before the emperor and empress and first minister, The first professor I saw was in a very large room, upon particular occasions. The emperor lays on the with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing table three fine silken threads, of six inches long; one me to look earnestly upon a frame which took up the is blue, the other red, and the third green. These threads greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the he said, perhaps I might wonder to see him employed emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark in a project for improving speculative knowledge by of his favour. The ceremony is performed in his practical and mechanical operations. But the world majesty's great chamber of state, where the candidates would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered are to undergo a trial of dexterity, very different from himself that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang the former, and such as I have not observed the least in any other man's head. Every one knew how laborious resemblance of in any other country of the new or the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; old world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands, whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, sometimes creep under it, backward and forward, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance several times, according as the stick is advanced or from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It the stick, and his first minister the other; sometimes was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever per- room. The superficies was composed of several bits of forms his part with most agility, and holds out the wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the others. They were all linked together by slender wires. blue-coloured silk; the red is given to the next, and These bits of wood were covered on every square with the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written round about the middle, and you see few great personsall the words of their language in their several moods, about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles.+

tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame, and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded sixand-thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor shewed me several volumes in large folio,

already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences. We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country.

The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because, in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns. The other was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health as well as brevity; for, it is plain, that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would serve as a universal language to be understood in all civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.

...

is a strict universal resemblance between the natural and political body, can there be anything more evident | than that the health of both must be preserved, and the diseases cured, by the same prescriptions? Upon the meeting of a senate, certain physicians should attend at the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each day's debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the senatehouse, attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and, before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them at the next meeting... He likewise directed that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because, if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.

When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs thus cut off be interchanged, applying each to the head of his opposite party-man. It seems indeed to be a work that requireth some exactness; but the professor assured us, that, if it were dexterously perI was at the mathematical school, where the master formed, the cure would be infallible. For he argued taught his pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us thus: that the two half brains being left to debate the in Europe. The proposition and demonstration were matter between themselves within the space of one fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a skull, would soon come to a good understanding, and cephalic tincture. This the student was to swallow produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinkupon a fasting stomach, and for three days following eating, so much to be wished for in the heads of those who nothing but bread and water. As the wafer digested, imagine they come into the world only to watch and the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the propo- govern its motion: and as to the difference of brains sition along with it. But the success hath not hitherto in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in been answerable, partly by some error in the quantum faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, or composition, and partly by the perverseness of lads, that it was a perfect trifle. to whom this bolus is so nauseous, that they generally steal aside, and discharge it upwards before it can operate; neither have they been yet persuaded to use so long an abstinence as the prescription requires.

In the school of political projectors I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing in my judgment wholly out of their senses, which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the academy, as to acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a most ingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole nature and system of government. This illustrious person had very usefully employed his studies in finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to which the several kinds of public administration are subject, by the vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those who are to obey. For instance, whereas all writers and reasoners have agreed that there

Thoughts on Various Subjects.

We have just religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our mind runs only on the bad ones.

When a true genius appeareth in the world, you may know him by this infallible sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

I am apt to think that, in the day of judgment, there will be small allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, or to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But some scruples in the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each.

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next: Future ages shall talk of this; this shall be famous to all posterity:' whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side setteth up false lights, and maketh a great noise, that the enemy may believe them to be more numerous and strong than they really are.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to

inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, &c. beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

Censure is the tax a man payeth to the public for being eminent.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

The common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter and scarcity of words for whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.

To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought to conceal his vanity.

Every man desireth to live long, but no man would be old.

If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years past, I am in some concern for future ages, how any man will be learned, or any man a lawyer.

A nice man is a man of nasty ideas. [How true of Swift himself!]

If a man maketh me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keepeth his at the same time.

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.

Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth, are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish: strange, so many hopeful princes, so many shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue if they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.

Overstrained Politeness, or Vulgar Hospitality.

From the Tatler, No. 20.

Those inferior duties of life which the French call les petites morales, or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by the name of good manners or breeding. This I look upon, in the general notion of it, to be a sort of artificial good sense, adapted to the meanest capacities, and introduced to make mankind easy in their commerce with each other. Low and little understandings, without some rules of this kind, would be perpetually wandering into a thousand indecencies and irregularities in behaviour; and in their ordinary conversation, fall into the same boisterous familiarities that one observeth amongst them when a debauch hath quite taken away the use of their reason. instances, it is odd to consider, that for want of In other

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TO 1727.

common discretion, the very end of good breeding is easy, is employed in laying chains and fetters upon wholly perverted; and civility, intended to make us us, in debarring us of our wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires and inclinations. This abuse tion, when I was last there, in a visit I made to a reigneth chiefly in the country, as I found to my vexaneighbour about two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the parlour, they put me into the great chair that stood close by a huge fire, and kept me there by force, until I was almost stifled. Then a boy vain opposed, urging that I must return soon after came in great hurry to pull off my boots, which I in dinner. In the meantime, the good lady whispered her eldest daughter, and slipped a key into her hand. The girl returned instantly with a beer-glass half full of aqua mirabilis and syrup of gillyflowers. I took as much as I had a mind for; but madam vowed I should drink it off-for she was sure it would do me good, after coming out of the cold air-and I was forced to obey; which absolutely took away my stomach. When dinner came in, I had a mind to sit at a distance from the fire; but they told me it was as much as my life was worth, and set me with my back just against it. Although my appetite was quite gone, I resolved to force down as much as I could; and desired the leg of a pullet. Indeed, Mr Bickerstaff,' says the lady, 'you must eat a wing to oblige me;' and so put a couple upon my plate. I was persecuted at this rate during the whole meal. As often as I called for small beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man, who came with me, to get ready the horses, but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked; and the children hid my cloak and boots. The next question was, what I would have for supper. I said I never ate anything at night; but was at last, in my own defence, obliged to name the first thing that came into my head. After three hours spent chiefly in apologies for my entertainment, insinuating to me, that this was the worst time of the year for provisions; that they were at a great distance from any market; that they were afraid I should be starved; and that they knew they kept me to my loss,' the lady went and left me to her husband-for they took special care I should never be alone. As soon as her back was turned, the little misses ran backwards and forwards every moment; and constantly as they came in or went out, made a courtesy directly at me, which in good manners I was forced to return with a bow, and, 'Your humble servant, pretty miss.' Exactly at eight the mother came up, and discovered by the redness of her face that supper was not far off. It was twice as large as the dinner, and my persecution doubled in proportion. I desired at my usual hour to go to my repose, and was conducted to my chamber by the gentleman, his lady, and the whole train of children. They importuned me to drink something before I went to bed; and upon my refusing, at last left a bottle of stingo, as they called it, for fear I should wake and be thirsty in the night. I was forced because they would not suffer my kinsman's servant to in the morning to rise and dress myself in the dark, disturb me at the hour I desired to be called. I was now resolved to break through all measures to get away; and after sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, neats'-tongues, venison-pasty, and stale beer, took leave of the family. But the gentleman would needs see me part of my way, and carry me a short-cut through his own grounds, which he told me would save half a mile's riding. This last piece of civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in danger of my neck, by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the dirt; and took us up more than an hour to recover him when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away,