1745. His character, i. 226. ii. 217. 219. 245.255.
Character of his writings by Dr. Johnson, ii. 247. See also i. lix.
His charities, i. 312. ii. 87. 169. xiii. 259. xix. 42. 124. xx. 62. 154. Strength of his memory, i. 83.
Raillery his talent, which was a bar to his farther preferment, xviii. 145.
Fond of walking, and therefore never wore boots, xix. 184.
His political principles, i. 116. 172. vi. 12. 279. xviii. 287. Their consequences, xiii. 259. xviii. 147.
His epistolary correspondence, prayers, and sermons. See Letters, Prayers, Sermons. Was a constant advocate for the whigs, un- der the Tory administration, xiii. 259. xvi. 12. xviii. 70. A great support to poor fa- milies, by lending them money without in- terest, xiii. 259.
His account of his own behaviour to the earl of Oxford, xx. 122.
Treated the scribblers against him with sove- reign contempt, iv. 217.
The requisites he expected in a wife, xv. 24.25. List of desiderata in his Works, i. xli. Received memorial presents from several great personages. From Mr. Addison, his Travels, with an elegant inscription, i. 125. A paper book, finely bound, with a polite epistle in verse, from Lord Orrery, xi. 263. A silver standish, with verses, from Dr. Delany, 264. A snuff-box, from general Hill, xv. 220. xxii. 135. A writing table from lady Orkney, xv. 232. Two pictures from the duchess of Ormond,
239. xxii. 158. A case of instruments from lady Johnson, xviii. 27. Reminded lord treasurer of the promise of his picture, xvi. 269. At that lord's death, demanded the picture from his son as a legacy, xvii. 10. Received a valuable screen from Mrs. Pratt, 25. A picture of Charles I. from Dr. Stopford, 55.75. A ring from Mrs. Howard, 82.
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, 5. Satirists use the pub- lick as pedants do a naughty-boy ready horsed for discipline; first expostulate, then plead the neces sity of the rod, and conclude every period 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 qua- lified to revenge the defect with their breath, ibid. The world soonest provoked to praise by lashes, as men to love, ibid. A pulpit of rotten wood a double emblem of a fanatick preacher, whose principal qualifications 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 attended with an
egg; or a nut, which, unless chosen with judg- ment, may cost a tooth, and pay with nothing but a worm, ibid. Conscience, 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 critick who reads only to censure, is as barbarous as a judge who should resolve to hang all that came before him, 91. Criticks improve writers, as the Nauplians learned the art of pruning from. an ass's browsing their vines, 95. Like a species of asses, formed with horns, and replete with gall, 96. 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 critick in youth will be a critick in old age; and, like a whore and an alderman, never changes his title or his nature, o8. Sets up with as little ex- pense as a tailor, and with like tools and abilities; the tailor's hell being the type of a critick's com- monplace 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, ibid. Their writings called the mirror of learning, and, like the mirrors of the ancients, made of brass, with- out mercury, 99. The first result of a critick's mind, like the fowler's first aim, the surest, 100. 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 consequent- ty snails most when there are fewest bones, ibid. Some writers enclose their digressions one in ano- ther, like a nest of boxes, 116. Men in misfor- tune are like men in the dark. to whom all co- lours are alike, 125, Disputants are for the most
part like unequal scales, the gravity of one side advancing the lightness of the other, 129. Di- gressions in a book 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, 132. Some know books as they do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance; or by inspecting the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail; that slippery eel of science being held by it, 133. 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 spar- rows, with flinging salt upon their tails, iii. 133. The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are un- ravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot, 134. Cant and vision are to the ear and eye what tickling is to the touch, 154. It is with human faculties as with liquors, the lightest will be ever at the top, 163. A fashionable reader is like a fly, which, when driven from a honeypot, will immediately, with very good appetite, alight and finish bis meal on an excrement, 185. 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 no- thing 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 skilful hand may be soon whipped into a froth; but, once scummed away, what ap-
pears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be
Certain fortunetellers mans destiny by peep- The absence of reason
thrown to the hogs, ibid. in North America read a ing into his breech, 259. is usually supplied by some quality fitted to in- crease our natural vices, as a troubled stream re- flects the image of an ill-shapen body not only larger, but more distorted, ix. 277. Writers of travels, like dictionary makers, are sunk into ob- livion by the weight and bulk of those who come last, and therefore lie uppermost, 3:8. 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 his- tory in a language which in a few years will scarce be understood, is like employing an excellent sta- tuary to work upon mouldering stone, vi. 59. Epithets, when used in poetry merely to fill up a line, are like steppingstones placed in a wide ken- nel; or like a heel-piece that supports a cripple; or like a bridge that joins two parishes; or like the elephants placed by geographers in maps of Africa when they are at a loss for towns, xi. 291. The landed gentlemen, upon whose credit the funds were raised 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. 14. 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 false- hood, 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 think- ing of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or a physician's finding out an infallible
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