1: I have taken M. Harley into favour again.
2: I will not see him (M. Harley) till he makes amends.... I was deaf to all entreaties, and have desired Lewis to go to him, and let him know that I expected further satisfaction. If we let these great ministers pretend too much, there will be no governing them....
One thing I warned him of, never to appear cold to me, for I would not be treated like a school-boy; that I expected every great minister who honoured me with his acquaintance, if he heard or saw anything to my disadvantage, would let me know in plain words, and not put me in pain to guess by the change or coldness of his countenance or behaviour; for it was what I would hardly bear from a crowned head; and I thought no subject's favour was worth it; and that I designed to let my lord Keeper and M. Harley know the same thing, that they might use me accordingly.
3: Mr secretary told me the duke of Buckingham had been talking much to him about me, and desired my acquaintance. I answered it could not be, for he had not made sufficient advances. Then the duke of Shrewsbury said he thought the duke was not used to make advances. I said I could not help that. For I always expected advances in proportion to men's quality, and more from a duke than from any other man.
I saw lord Halifax at court, and we joined and talked, and the duchess of Shrewsbury came up and reproached me for not dining with her. I said that was not so soon done, for I expected more advances from ladies, especially duchesses. She promised to comply.... Lady Oglethorp brought me and the duchess of Hamilton together to day in the drawing-room, and I have given her some encouragement, but not much. (Journal, 19 mai et 7 octobre.)
4: I generally am acquainted with about thirty in the drawing-room, and am so proud that I make all the lords come up to me. One passes half an hour pleasant enough.
5: I am glad you know your duty; for it has been a known and established rule above twenty years, that the first advances have been constantly made me by ladies who aspired to my acquaintance, and the greater their quality, the greater were their advances.
6: This I resented highly that he should complain of me before he spoke to me. I sent him a peppering letter, and would not summon him by a note as I did the rest. Nor ever will have any thing to say to him till he begs my pardon.
7: Lettre à Bolingbroke.
8: A person of great honour in Ireland (who was pleased to stoop so low as to look into my mind) used to tell me that my mind was like a conjured spirit, that would do mischief, if I would not give it employment.
9: All the whigs were ravished to see me, and would have laid hold on me as a twig, to save them from sinking; and the great men were all making me their clumsy apologies. It is good to see what a lamentable confession the whigs all make of my ill usage.
10: So, my lord lieutenant, this is a glorious exploit that you performed yesterday, in issuing a proclamation against a poor shopkeeper, whose only crime is an honest endeavour to save his country from ruin.
11: Il avait esquissé dès cette époque le Conte du Tonneau.
12: Il dit à la muse:
Wert thou right woman, thou should'st scorn to look
On an abandon'd wretch by hopes forsook,
Forsook by hopes, ill fortune's last relief,
Assign'd for life to unremitting grief,
To thee I owe that fatal bend of mind
Still to unhappy restless thoughts inclined;
To thee what oft I vainly strive to hide,
That scorn of fools, by fools mistook for pride.
13: Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when sir William Temple would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirit since then, faith. He spoiled a fine gentleman.
14:
Poor we! cadets of Heaven, not worth her care,
Take up at best with lumber and the leavings of a fare.
15: Mistress Harris's petition.
16:
You know I honour the cloth; I design to be a parson's wife....
And over and above, that I may have your Excellencies' letter
With an order for the chaplain aforesaid, or instead of him a better.
17: Par le Conte du Tonneau auprès du clergé, et par la Prophétie de Windsor auprès de la reine.
18: Lettres du Drapier, Gulliver, Rhapsodie sur la poésie, Proposition modeste, divers pamphlets sur l'Irlande.
19: I find myself disposed every year or rather every month to be more angry and revengeful; and my rage is so ignoble that it descends even to resent the folly and baseness of the enslaved people among whom I live.
20: If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long.... I am sure I could have born the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours.... O, that you may have but so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity!
21: It is time for me to have done with the world.... And so I would,... and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
22: I shall be like that tree. I shall die at the top.
23: «L'absence de foi est un inconvénient qu'il faut cacher quand on ne peut le vaincre.—Je me regarde, en qualité de prêtre, comme chargé par la Providence de défendre un poste qu'elle m'a confié, et de faire déserter autant d'ennemis qu'il est possible.» (Pensées sur la religion.)
24: Je ne crois pas, quoi qu'on ait dit, qu'il fût alors de mauvaise foi. On pouvait croire à une escroquerie ministérielle, et Swift plus qu'un autre. Au fond, Swift me paraît honnête homme.
25: Brethren, friends, countrymen, and fellow-subjects, what I intend now to say to you, is, next to your duty to God and the care of your salvation, of the greatest concern to you and your children; your bread and clothing and every common necessary of life depends upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you, as men, as christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read this paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others; which that you may do at the less expense, I have ordered the printer to sell at it the lowest rate.
26: Your paragraph relates farther that sir Isaac Newton reported an essay taken at the Tower of Wood's metal, by which it appears that Wood had in all respects performed his contract. His contract! With whom? Was it with the Parliament or people of Ireland? Are not they to be purchasers? But they detest, abhor, and reject it as corrupt, fraudulent, mingled with dirt and trash.
27: His first proposal is that he will be content to coin no more (than forty thousand pounds), unless the exigencies of the trade require it, although his patent empowers him to coin a far greater quantity.... To which if I were to answer, it should be thus: let Mr Wood and his crew of founders and tinkers coin on, till there is not an old kettle left in the kingdom; let them coin old leather, tobacco-pipe clay, or the dirt in the street, and call their trumpery by what name they please, from a guinea to a farthing; we are not under any concern to know how he and his tribe of accomplices think fit to employ themselves; but I hope and trust that we are all, to a man, fully determined to have nothing to do with him or his ware.
28: Your newsletter says that an essay was made of the coin. How impudent and insupportable is this! Wood takes care to coin a dozen or two halfpence of good metal, sends them to the Tower, and they are approved; and these must answer all that he has already coined or shall coin for the future. It is true, indeed, that a gentleman often sends to my shop for a pattern of stuff. I cut it fairly off, and if he likes it, he comes or sends and compares the pattern with the whole piece, and probably we come to a bargain. But if I were to buy a hundred sheep, and the grazier should bring me one single wether fat and well fleeced by way of pattern, and expect the same price for the whole hundred, without suffering me to see them before he was paid or giving me good security to restore my money for those that were lean, or shorn or scabby, I would be none of his customers. I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he showed as a pattern to encourage the purchasers; and this is directly the case in point with Mr Wood's essay.
29: The common soldier, when he goes to the market or ale house will offer his money; and if it be refused, he perhaps will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or alewife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad half-pence. In this and the like cases, the shop-keeper or victualler, or any other tradesman, has no more to do than to demand ten times the price of his goods, if it is to be paid in Wood's money; for example twenty pence of that money for a quart of ale, and so in all things, and never part with the goods till he gets the money.
30: Upon this rock the author is perpetually splitting, as often as he ventures out beyond the narrow bounds of his literature. He has a confused remembrance of words since he left the university, but has lost half their meaning, and puts them together with no regard except to their cadence; as I remember a fellow nailed up maps in a gentleman's closet, some sidelong, others upside down, the better to adjust them to the pannels.
Voyez aussi dans l'Examiner le pamphlet sur Malborough, désigné sous le nom de Crassus, et la comparaison de la générosité romaine et de la ladrerie anglaise.
31: I have had the honour of much conversation with his lordship, and am thoroughly convinced how indifferent he is to applause and how insensible of reproach.... He is without the sense of shame or glory, as some men are without the sense of smelling; therefore a good name to him is no more than a precious ointment would be to these. Whoever, for the sake of others, were to describe the nature of a serpent, a wolf, a crocodile or a fox, must be understood to do it without any personal love or hatred for the animals themselves. In the same manner his Excellency is one whom I neither personally love or hate. I see him at court, at his own house, or sometimes at mine, for I have the honour of his visits; and when these papers are public, it is odds but he will tell me, as he once did upon a like occasion, «that he is damnably mauled,» and then with the easiest transition in the world, ask about the weather, or time of the day. So that I enter on the work with more cheerfulness, because I am sure neither to make him angry, nor any way to hurt his reputation; a pitch of happiness and security to which his Excellency has arrived, and which no philosopher before him could reach.—Thomas, Earl of Wharton, lord lieutenant of Ireland, by the force of a wonderful constitution, has some years passed his grand climacterick without any visible effects of old age, either on his body or his mind and in spite of a continual prostitution to those vices which usually wear out both.... Whether he walks or whistles, or swears, or talks bawdy, or calls names, he acquits himself in each beyond a templar of three years standing. With the same grace and in the same style, he will rattle his coachman in the midst of the street, where he is governor of the kingdom; and all this is without consequence, because it is his character, and what every body expects.... The ends he has gained by lying appear to be more owing to the frequency than the art of them, his lies being sometimes detected in an hour, often in a day, and always in a week.... He swears solemnly he loves and will serve you, and your back is no sooner turned, but he tells those about him you are a dog and a rascal. He goes constantly to prayers in the forms of his place, and will talk bawdy and blasphemy at the chapel door. He is a presbyterian in politicks, and an atheist in religion, but he chooses at present to whore with a papist. In his commerce with mankind, his general rule is to endeavour to impose on their understandings, for which he has but a receipt, a composition of lies and oaths.... He bears the gallantries of his lady with the indifference of a stoick, and thinks them well recompensed by a return of children to support his family, without the fatigues of being a father.... He was never known to refuse or to keep a promise, as I remember he told a lady, but with an exception to the promise he then made, which was to get her a pension. Yet he broke even that, and, I confess, deceived us both. But here I desire to distinguish between a promise and a bargain; for he will be sure to keep the latter, when he has the fairest offer.... But here I must desire the reader's pardon, if I cannot digest the following facts in so good a manner as I intended; because it is thought expedient for some reasons, the world should be informed of his Excellency's merits as soon as possible.... As they are, they may serve for hints to any person who may hereafter have a mind to write memoirs of his Excellency's life.
32: Argument contre l'abolition du christianisme. Il s'agit de décrier les whigs, amis des libres penseurs.
33: It may perhaps be neither safe nor prudent, to argue against the abolishment of christianity, at a juncture, when all parties appear so unanimously determined upon the point.... However I know not how, whether from the affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature, but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this opinion. Nay, though I were sure an order were issued for my immediate prosecution by the attorney-general, I should still confess, that in the present posture of our affairs, at home or abroad, I do not yet see the absolute necessity of extirpating the christian religion from among us. This perhaps may appear too great a paradox even for our wise and paradoxical age to endure; therefore I shall handle it with all tenderness, and with the utmost deference to that great and profound majority which is of another sentiment.... I hope no reader imagines me so weak as to stand up in the defence of real christianity, such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages), to have an influence upon men's belief and actions. To offer at the restoring of that would indeed be a wild project; it would be to dig up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and half the learning of the kingdom.... Every candid reader will easily understand my discourse to be intended only in defence of nominal christianity; the other having been for some time wholly laid aside by general consent, as utterly inconsistent with our present schemes of wealth and power.
34: It is likewise urged, that there are by computation in this kingdom above ten thousand parsons, whose revenues, added to those of my lords the bishops, would suffice to maintain at least two hundred young gentlemen of wit and pleasure, and freethinking, enemies to priestcraft, narrow principles, pedantry, and prejudices, who might be an ornament to the court and town.
35: It is likewise proposed as a great advantage to the publick that if we once discard the system of the Gospel, all religion will of course be banished for ever, and consequently along with it, those grievous prejudices of education, which under the names of virtue, conscience, honour, justice, and the like, are so apt to disturb the peace of human minds, and the notions thereof are so hard to be eradicated by right reason, or free-thinking.
36: 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, 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 calculated in all points whereon to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived 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?
37: I do very much apprehend that in six months time after the act is passed for the extirpation of the Gospel, the Bank and East-India stock may fall at least one per cent. And since that is fifty more than ever the wisdom of our age thought fit to venture for the preservation of christianity, there is no reason why we should bear so great a loss, merely for the sake of destroying it.
38: La Boucle de cheveux enlevée.
39: Pope, Arbuthnot et Swift y ont travaillé ensemble.
40: My first prediction is but a trifle; yet I will mention it to show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns. It relates to Partridge the almanack-maker. I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th March next, about eleven at night of a raging fever; therefore I advise him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time.
41: To call a man a fool and villain, and an impudent fellow, only for differing from him in a point merely speculative, is, in my humble opinion, a very improper style for a person of his education. I will appeal to Mr Partridge himself, whether it be probable I could have been so indiscreet, to begin my prediction, with the only falsehood that ever was pretended to be in them, and this in an affair at home?
42: Letter to a very young lady.
43: That ridiculous passion which has no being but in playbooks and romances.
44: I never yet knew a tolerable woman to be fond of her sex.... your sex employ more thought, memory and application to be fools than would serve to make them wise and useful.... When I reflect on this, I cannot conceive you to be human creatures, but a sort of species hardly a degree above a monkey; who has more diverting tricks than any of you, is an animal less mischievous and expensive, might in time be a tolerable critick in velvet and brocade, and, for aught I know, would equally become them.
45:
His talk was now of tithes and dues;
He smok'd his pipe and read the news....
Against dissenters would repine,
And stood up firm for right divine.
46:
And all their conduct would be try'd
By her, as an unerring guide.
Offending daughters oft would hear
Vanessa's praise rung in their ear.
Miss Betty, when she does a fault,
Lets fall her knife or spills the salt,
Will then by her mother be chid:
«'Tis what Vanessa never did!»
47:
He now could praise, esteem, approve,
But understood not what was love.
48:
Stella, this day is thirty-four
(We sha'n't dispute a year or more).
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green;
So little is thy form declin'd,
Made up so largely in thy mind.
49:
O, would it please the Gods to split
Thy beauty, size, years and wit!
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphes so graceful, wise, and fair.
50: Ovide, Homère, Plutarque.
51:
The parsons for envy are ready to burst;
The servants amazed are scarce ever able
To keep off their eyes, as they wait at the table;
And Molly and I have thrust in our nose
To peep at the captain in all his fine clothes;
Dear madam, be sure he's a fine spoken man,
Do but hear on the clergy how glib his tongue ran;
'And madam,' says he, 'if such dinners you give,
You'll never want parsons as long as you live;
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose.
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes;
G—d—me, they bid us reform and repent,
But, z—s, by their looks they never keep lent;
Mister curate, for all your grave looks, I'm afraid
You cast a sheep's eye on her ladyship's maid;
I wish she would lend you her pretty white hand
In mending your cassock, and smoothing your band;
(For the dean was so shabby, and looked like a ninny,
That the captain supposed he was curate to Jenny.)
Whenever you see a cassock and gown,
A hundred to one but it covers a clown;
Observe how a parson comes into a room,
G—d—me, he hobbles as bad as my groom;
A scholar, when just from his college broke loose,
Can hardly tell how to cry bo to a goose;
Your Noveds, and Bluturks, and Omurs, and stuff,
By G—, they don't signify this pinch of snuff;
To give a young gentleman right education,
The army's the only good school of the nation.
52:
How is the dean? he's just alive.
Now the departing prayer is read;
He hardly breathes. The dean is dead.
Before the passing-bell begun,
The news through half the town has run;
Oh! may we all for death prepare!
What has he left? and who's his heir?
I know no more than what the news is;
'Tis all bequeath'd to public uses.
To public uses! there's a whim!
What had the public done for him?
Mere envy, avarice, and pride:
He gave it all—but first he died.
And had the dean in all the nation
No worthy friend, no poor relation?
So ready to do strangers good,
Forgetting his own flesh and blood!
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day....
My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learned to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps:
'The dean is dead (pray, what is trumps?)
Then, Lord, have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall.
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend?
No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight;
And he's engaged to-morrow night:
My Lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the dean—(I lead a heart)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come, he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place.'
53: The ladies dressing-room.
54: Strephon and Chloe.
55: A Love-poem from a Physician.
56: The Progress of Beauty.
57: The Problem. Lire surtout Examination of certain abuses.
58: La vérité chrétienne.
59: Persécutions et combats de l'Église primitive.
60: They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes, which invests every thing: that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the stars, and the stars are invested by the primum mobile.... What is that which some call land, but a fine coat laced with green? Or the sea but a waistcoat of water-tabby?... You will find how curious journeyman nature has been to trim up vegetable beans. Observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of the beech, and what a fine doublet of white satin is worn by the birch.... Is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipt down for the service of both?... If certain ermines and furs be placed in a certain position, we style them a judge; and so an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin, we entitle a bishop.
61: In this unhappy case they went immediately to consult their father's will, read it over and over, but not a word of a Shoulder-Knot.... After much thought, one of the brothers who happened to be more book-learned than the other two, said he had found an expedient. «It is true, said he, there is nothing in this will, totidem verbis, making mention of Shoulder-Knot; but I dare conjecture we may find them inclusive, or totidem syllabis.—This distinction was immediately approved by all; and so they fell again to examine; but their evil star had so directed the matter that the first syllable was not to be found in the whole writings. Upon which disappointment, he, who found the former evasion, took heart and said: Brothers, there is yet hopes, for though we cannot find them totidem verbis, nor totidem syllabis, I dare engage we shall make them out tertio modo, or totidem litteris. This discovery was also highly commended; upon which they fell once more to the scrutiny, and picked out SHOULDER; when the same planet, enemy to their repose, had wonderfully contrived that a K was not to be found. Here was a weighty difficulty; but the distinguishing brother, now his hand was in, proved by a very good argument that K was a modern illegitimate letter; unknown to the learned ages, nor any where to be found in ancient manuscripts.... Upon which all difficulty vanished; shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure paterno, and our three gentlemen swaggered with as large and flaunting ones as the best.
62: Next winter a player hired for the purpose by the corporation of fringe-makers, acted his part in a new comedy all covered with silver fringe, and according to the laudable custom gave rise to that fashion. Upon which the brothers consulting their father's will, to their great astonishment found these words. «Item, I charge and command my said three sons to wear no sort of silver fringe upon or about their said coat.» However, after some pause the brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who was well skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said would be nameless, that the same word which in the will is called fringe does also signify a broomstick and doubtless ought to have the same interpretation in this paragraph. This another of the brothers disliked, because of that epithet silver which could not, he humbly conceived, in propriety of speech, be reasonably applied to a broom-stick; but it was replied upon him that this epithet was understood in a mythological and allegorical sense. However, he objected again why their father should forbid them to wear a broom-stick on their coats, a caution that seemed unnatural and impertinent; upon which, he was taken up short, as one that spoke irreverently of a mystery, which doubtless was very useful and significant, but ought not to be over-curiously pried into, or nicely reasoned upon.
63: Allusions aux assemblées des puritains, à leur prononciation nasale, etc.
First, it is generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up; and secondly they proved it by the following syllogism: words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo learning is nothing but wind.—.... This, when blown up to its perfection, ought not to be covetously hoarded up, stifled, or hid under a bushel, but freely communicated to mankind. Upon these reasons and others of equal weight, the wise æolists affirm the gift of belching to be the noblest act of a rational.... creature.... At certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests among them in vast number.... linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbour's breech, by which they blew each other to the shape and size of a tun; and for that reason with great propriety of speech did usually call their bodies their vessels.... and to render these yet more compleat, because the breath of man's life is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most enlivening belches were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle, to give them a tincture as they passed.
64: Petit livre à l'usage des enfants, ainsi que Whittington et son chat, nommé plus loin.
65: The types are so apposite and the applications so necessary and natural, that it is not easy to conceive how any reader of a modern age or taste, could overlook them.... For first: Pausanias is of an opinion that the perfection of writing correct was entirely owing to the institution of criticks; and that he can possibly mean no other than the true critick is, I think, manifest from the following description. He says they were a race of men, who delighted to nibble at the superfluities and excrescencies of books, which the learned at length observing took warning, of their own accord, to lop the luxuriant, the rotten, the dead, the sapless, and the overgrown branches from their works. But now all this he cunningly shades under the following allegory: that the Nauplians in Argos learned the art of pruning their vines, by observing that when an ass had browsed upon one of them, it thrived the better and bore fairer fruits.
66: Herodotus holding the same hieroglyph speaks much plainer and almost in terminis; he has been so bold as to tax the true criticks of ignorance and malice, telling us openly (for I think nothing can be plainer), that in the western part of Libya there were asses with horns.
67: Les descriptions qui suivent sont telles que je n'ose les traduire.
68: Is any student tearing his straw in piece-meal, swearing and blaspheming, biting his grate, foaming at the mouth, and emptying his piss-pot in the spectator's faces? Let the right worshipfull commissioners of inspection give him a regiment of dragoons, and send him into Flanders among the rest.... You will find a third taking gravely the dimensions of his kennel; a person of foresight and insight, though kept quite in the dark.... He walks duly in one pace.... talks much of hard times and taxes and the whore of Babylon, bars up the wooden window of his cell constantly at eight o'clock, dreams of fire.... Now what a figure would all those acquirements make if the owner were sent into the city among his brethren!... Accost the hole of another kennel (first stopping your nose), you will behold a surly, gloomy, nasty, slovenly mortal, raking in his own dung, and dabbling in his urine; the best parts of his diet is the reversion of his own ordure, which, expiring into steams, whirls perpetually about, and at last reinfunds. His complexion is of a dirty yellow, with a thin scattered beard, exactly agreeable to that of his diet upon its first declination; like other insects who having their birth and education in a excrement, from thence borrow their colour and their smell.... Now is it not amazing the society of Warwick-lane should have no more concern for the recovery of so useful a member?... I shall not descend so minutely, as to insist upon the vast number of beaux, fiddlers, poets, and politicians, that the world might recover by such a reformation.... Even I myself, the author of these momentous truths, am a person whose imaginations are hard-mouthed, and exceedingly disposed to run away with his reason, which I have observed from long experience to be a very light rider, and easily shaken off; upon which account my friends will never trust me alone, without a solemn promise to vent my speculations in this or the like manner, for the universal benefit of mankind.
69: When the king has a mind to put any of his nobles to death in a gentle, indulgent manner, he commands the floor to be strewed with a certain brown powder of a deadly composition, which being licked up, infallibly kills him in twenty-four hours. But in justice to this prince's great clemency and the care he has of his subjects' lives (wherein it were much to be wished that the monarchs of Europe would imitate him) it must be mentioned for his honour that strict orders are given to have the infected parts of the floor well washed after every such execution.... I myself heard him give directions that one of his pages should be whipped, whose turn it was to give notice about washing the floor after an execution, but who maliciously had omitted it; by which neglect, a young lord of great hopes coming to an audience, was unfortunately poisoned, although the prince at that time had no design against his life. But this good prince was so gracious as to forgive the poor page his whipping, upon promise that he would do so no more, without special orders.
70: Je suis forcé de supprimer plusieurs traits.
71: At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of the same kind sitting in trees. Their shape was very singular and deformed.... Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled, and others lank. They had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair behind their back, and the forepart of their legs and feet. But the rest of the body was bare so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus.... They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminated in sharp points and hooked.... The females had long lank hair on their head but none on their faces, nor any thing more than a sort of down on the rest of their bodies, except about the anus and pudenda. The dugs hung between their forefeet, and often reached almost to the ground as they walked.... Upon the whole I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so great an antipathy.
72: In most herds there was a sort of ruling yahoo, who was always more deformed in body and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest; this leader had usually a favourite as like himself as he could get, whose employment was to lick his master's feet and posteriors, and drive the female yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded with a piece of ass flesh.... He usually continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor, at the head of all the yahoos in that district, male and female, come in a body and discharge their excrements upon him from head to foot.
73: I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin, that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
74: «Proposition modeste pour empêcher que les enfants des pauvres en Irlande ne soient une charge à leurs parents ou à leur pays, et pour les rendre utiles au public.» 1729.—Swift devint fou quelques années après.
75: It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin-doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.... I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children.... is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore, whosoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound, easy members of the Commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.... I shall now, therefore, humbly propose my own thoughts; which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
76: I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof one-fourth part to be males.... that the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for good tables. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned, upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to twenty-eight pounds.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farmers), to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require), may flay the carcass: the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.—As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose, in the most convenient parts of it; and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, then dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasted pigs....
I think the advantages by the proposals which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance. For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most dangerous enemies.... Thirdly, whereas the maintenance of a hundred thousand children, from two years old and upwards, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refinement in taste. And all the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.... Sixthly, this would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit or expense.... Many other advantages might be enumerated, for instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barrelled beef; the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon.... But this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Some persons of desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people who are aged, diseased, or maimed; and I have been desired to employ my thoughts, what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known, that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers, they are now in almost as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment to a degree, that, if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour, they have not strength to perform it. And thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
77: I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
78: He that opposes his own judgment against the current of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truth, and he that has truth on his side is a fool as well as a coward, if he is afraid to own it, because of the multitude of other men's opinions. 'Tis hard for a man to say, all the world is mistaken, but himself. But if it be so, who can help it?
79: Voyez ses poëmes si plats, entre autres «Jure Divino, a poem in twelve books, in defence of every man's birthright by nature.»
80: The story is told.... to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence. The Editor believes the thing to be a just history of facts; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it.
81: Comparer au Cas de M. Waldemar, par Edgar Poe. L'Américain est un artiste malade, et de Foe un bourgeois sensé.
82: I had the biggest magazine of all kinds now that ever was laid up, I believe, for one man. But I was not satisfied still; for while the ship sat upright in this posture, I thought I ought to get every thing out of her that I could.... I got most of the pieces of the cable ashore, and some of the iron, though with infinite labour; for I was fain to dip for it into the water, a work which fatigued me very much.... I verily believe, had the calm weather held, I should have brought away the whole ship, piece by piece.
83: A very tedious and laborious work. But what need I have to be concerned at the tediousness of any thing I had to do, since I had time enough to do it?... My time or labour was little worth, and so it was as well employed one way as another.
84: I bore with this.... I went through that by dint of hard labour.... Many weary stroke it had cost.... This will testify that I was not idle.... As I had learned not to despair of any thing. I never grudged my labour.
85: By stating and squaring every thing by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be in time master of every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools.
86: I had every thing so ready to my hand, that it was a great pleasure for me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of necessaries so great.
87: I considered that the Devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have terrified me.... that, as I lived quite on the other side of the island, he would never have been so simple to leave a mark in a place where it was ten thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which the first surge of the sea upon a high wind would have defaced entirely. All this seemed inconsistent with the thing itself, and with all notions we usually entertain of the subtlety of the Devil.
88: Nos anciennes éditions françaises suppriment tous ces détails caractéristiques.
89: Immediately it occurred that these words were to me. Why else should they be directed in such a manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition, as one forsaken from God and man?
90: With these reflections, I worked my mind up not only to a resignation to the will of God,... but even to a sincere thankfulness.
91:.... That he (God) could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and the want of human society by his presence and communication of his graces to my soul, supporting, comforting and encouraging me to depend upon his Providence and hope for his eternal presence hereafter.
92: 1709-1711-1713.
93: 1741.
94: To be sure I did think nothing but curt'sy and cry, and was all in confusion at his goodness.
I was so confounded at these words, you might have beat me down with a feather.... So, like a fool, I was ready to cry, and went away curt'sying, and blushing, I am sure up to the ears.
95: This gentleman has degraded himself to offer freedoms to his poor servant.
96: It is for you, sir, to say what you please, and for me only to say: God bless your honour!
97: I cannot tell a wilful lie.
98: Lucifer always is ready to promote his own work and workmen.
99: My soul is of equal importance to the soul of a princess, though my quality is inferior to that of the meanest slave.
100: I fear not, sir, the grace of God supporting me, that any acts of kindness would make me forget what I owe to my virtue; but my nature is too frank and open to make me ungrateful; and if I should be taught a lesson I never yet learnt, with what regret should I descend to the grave, to think that I could not hate my undoer; and that at the last great day, I must stand up as an accuser of the poor unhappy soul that I could wish it in my power to save!
101: I had the boldness to kiss his hand.... I made bold to kiss his dear hand.
My heart is so wholly yours that I am afraid of nothing but that I might be forwarder than you wish.
This poor foolish girl must be after twelve o'clock this day as much his wife as if he were to marry a duchess.
102: I clasped my arms about his neck and was not ashamed to kiss him once, and twice, and three times, once for each forgiven person.
103: Voyez déjà dans Paméla les rôles de M. B. et de lady Davers.
104: He told he would break some body's heart.
105: The witty, the prudent, nay the dutiful and pious (so she sneeringly pronounced the word) Clarisse Harlowe should be so strangely fond of a profligate man, that her parents were forced to lock her up, in order to hinder her from running into his arms. «Let me ask you, my dear, said she, how you now keep your account of the disposition of your time? How many hours in the twenty-four do you devote to your needle? How many to your prayers? How many to letter-writing? And how many to love? I doubt, I doubt, my little dear, the latter article is like Aaron's rod, and swallows up the rest.... You must therefore bend or break, that was all, child....
106: «What, not speak yet? Come, my sullen, silent dear, speak one word to me. You must say two very soon to Mr Solmes, I can tell you that.... Well, well (insultingly wiping my averted face with her handkerchief).... Then you think you may be brought to speak the two words.
107: This, Clary, is a pretty pattern enough. But this is quite charming!—And this, were I you, should be my wedding night-gown.—But, Clary, won't you have a velvet suit? It would cut a great figure in a country church, you know. Crimson velvet, I suppose. Such a fine complexion as yours, how it would be set off by this!—And do you sigh, love? Black velvet, so fair as you are, with those charming eyes, gleaming, through a wintry cloud, like an April sun. Does not Lovelace tell you they are charming eyes?
108: Let us go, Madam, let us leave the creature to swell till she bursts with her own poison.
109: Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos... «I love opposition.»
110: Damn me, said Lovelace, if he would marry the first princess on earth, if he but thought she balanced a minute in her choice of him or of an Emperor.
111: I went into mourning for her, though abroad at the time; a distinction I have ever paid to those worthy creatures who died in childbed by me.
112: Mémoires du maréchal de Richelieu.
113: That command of my passions which has been attributed to me as my greatest praise, and, in so young a creature, as my distinction.
114: How I am punished.... for my vanity in hoping to be an example to young persons of my sex! Let me be but a warning and I will now be contented.
115: Entre autres choses voyez son testament.
116: Elle se fait pour elle-même la statistique et la classification des mérites et des défauts de Lovelace, avec divisions et numéros. Voyez cette logique anglaise positiviste et pratique:
That such a husband might unsettle me in all my own principles and hasard my future hopes.
That he has a very immoral character to women.
That knowing this, it is a high degree of impurity to think of joining in wedlock with such a man.
Elle tient ses écritures et garde des Mémorandums, des sommaires, ou analyses de ses propres lettres.
117: Myself one who never looked upon any duty, much less a voluntary vowed one, with indifference.
118: Voyez entre autres p. 196, t. VIII, 49e lettre.
119: «Swearing is a most unmanly vice, and cursing as poor and low one; since they proclaim the profligate's want of power and his wickedness at the same time; for could such a one punish as he speaks, he would be a fiend.»
120: «I should be inclined to spare her all further trial, were it not for the contention that her vigilance has set on foot, which shall overcome the other.
121: Niceties.
122: C'est tout le contraire pour les héroïnes de George Sand.
123: He received the letters, standing up, bowing; and kissed the papers with an air of gallantry that I thought greatly became him.
124: I am afraid I must borrow of the Sunday some hours on my journey; but visiting the sick is an act of mercy.
125: And now, loveliest and dearest of women, allow me to expect the honour of a line, to let me know how much of the tedious month from last Thursday you will be so good to abate.... My utmost gratitude will ever be engaged by the condescension, whenever you shall distinguish the day of the year, distinguished as it will be to the end of my life that shall give me the greatest blessing of it and confirm me.
For ever yours Charles Grandisson.
126: What, my love! In compliment to the best of parents, resume your usual presence of mind. I else, who shall glory before a thousand witnesses in receiving the honour of your hand, shall be ready to regret I acquiesced so cheerfully with the wishes of those parental friends for a public celebration.
127: Sir Charles seemed to have the office by heart, Harriet in her heart.
128: In a soothing, tender and respectful manner, he put his arm round me and taking my own handkerchief, unresisted, wiped away the tears as they fell on my cheek. «Sweet humanity! Charming sensibility! Check not the kindly gush. Dew-drops of heaven! (wiping away my tears, and kissing the handkerchief), dew-drops of Heaven, from a mind like that Heaven mild and gracious!
129: But could he be otherwise than the best of husbands, who was the most dutiful of sons, who is the most affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends, who is good upon principle in every relation of life?
130: Clarisse et Paméla en font beaucoup trop.
131: Il était pourtant fils d'un général et petit-fils d'un comte.
132: Impossible de tout traduire. Liv. VI, ch. 9. Voyez vous-même l'offre remarquable que le squire fait à Jones.
133: It's well for un I could not get at un; I'd a lick'd un, I'd a spoil'd his caterwauling; I'd a taught the son of a whore to meddle with the meat of his master. He shan't ever have a morsel of meat of mine or a varden to buy it. If she will ha un, one smock shall be her portion. I'll sooner gee my estate to the zinking fund, that it may be sent to Hanover, to corrupt our nation with.
134: Puss, terme de chasse, sans équivalent en français.
135: Pox o' your sorrow. It will do me abundance of good, when I have lost my only child, my poor Sophy, that was the joy of my heart, and all the hope and comfort of my age. But I am resolved I will turn her out o' doors; she shall beg and starve and rot in the streets. Not one hapenny, not a hapenny shall she ha o' mine. The son of a bitch was always good at finding a hare sitting and be rotted to'n; I little thought what puss he was looking after. But it shall be the worst he ever vound in his life. She shall be no better than carrion; the skin o'er it is all he shall ha, and zu you may tell un.
136: I am determined upon this match, and ha him you shall, damn me, if shat unt. Damn me, if shat unt, though dost hang thyself the next morning.
137: To her, boy, to her, go to her. That's it, my little honeys, O that's it. Well, what, is it all over? Has she appointed the day, boy? What, shall it be to-morrow, or the next day? It shan't be put off a minute longer than next day, I am resolved.... I tell thee it is all a flimflam. Zoodikers! she'd ha the wedding to night with all her heart. Would'st not, Sophy? Where the devil is Allworthy?... Harkee, Allworthy, I'll bet thee five pounds to a crown, we ha a boy to-morrow nine months. But prithee, tell me what wat ha? Wat ha Burgundy, Champaigne, or what? For please Jupiter, we'll make a night on't.
138: Préface de Joseph Andrews.
139: Jonathan Wild.
140: Amélia est la parfaite épouse anglaise, supérieure en cuisine, dévouée jusqu'à pardonner à son mari ses infidélités accidentelles, toujours grosse. «Dear Billy, though my understanding be much inferior to yours, etc.» Elle est modeste à l'excès, toujours rougissante et tendre. Bagillard lui ayant écrit des lettres d'amour, elle les jette: «I would not have such a letter in my possession for the universe; I thought my eyes contaminated with reading it.»
141: I declared that if I had the world I was ready to lay it at my Amelia's feet. And so, heaven knows, I would ten thousand worlds!