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• frange but, if you had not fupped, "I must have got fo nething for you.—

"Let me fee, what fhould I have had? "A couple of lobsters; ay, that would "have done very well; two fhillings"tarts, a fhilling: but you will drink "a glafs of wine with me, though you

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fupped fo much before your usual "time only to fpare my pocket?"—No, "we had rather talk with you than "drink with you. But if you had

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fupped with me, as in all reason you

ought to have done, you must then "have drunk with me.-A bottle of "wine, two fhillings-two and two is "four, and one is five: juft two-and

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fix-pence a-piece. There, Pope, there's

"half a crown for you, and there's ano

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ther for you, Sir; for I won't fave.

any thing by you, I am determined.'"This was all faid and done with his "ufual ferioufnefs on fuch occafions;

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and, in fpite of every thing we could fay to the contrary, he actually obliged us to take the money.”

In the intercourfe of familiar life, he indulged his difpofition to petulance and farcafm, and thought himself injured if the licentioufnefs of his raillery, the freedom of his cenfures, or the petulance of his frolicks, was resented or repreffed. He predominated over his companions with very high afcendency, and probably would bear none over whom he could not predominate. To give him advice was, in the ftile of his

friend Delany, to venture to speak to him. This cuftomary fuperiority foon grew too delicate for truth; and Swift, with all his penetration, allowed himself to be delighted with low flattery.

On all common occafions, he habitually affects a ftyle of arrogance, and dictates rather than perfuades. This authoritative and magifterial language he expected to be received as his peculiar mode of jocularity; but he apparently flattered his own arrogance by an asfumed predomination, in which he was ironical only to the refentful, and to the fubmiffive fufficiently serious.

He told ftories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew

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himself to do well. He was therefore

captivated by the respectful filence of a fteady liftener, and told the fame tales too often.

He did not, however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was his rule, when he had spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for any other speaker. Of time, on all occafions, he was an exact computer, and knew the minutes required to every common operation. It may be justly fuppofed that there was in his converfation, what appears fo frequently in his Letters, an affectation of familiarity with the Great, an ambition of momentary equality fought and enjoyed by the neglect of thofe ceremonies which cuftom has established as the

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barriers between one order of fociety and another. This tranfgreffion of regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatnefs of foul. But a great mind difdains to hold any thing by courtefy, and therefore never ufurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on another's dignity, puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condefcenfion.

Of Swift's general habits of thinking if his Letters can be fuppofed to afford any evidence, he was not a man to be either loved or envied. He feems to have wafted life in difcontent, by the rage of neglected pride, and the languifhment of unfatisfied defire. He

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