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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