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medicine after the patient is dead, 22. Great
changes affect commonwealths, as thunder does
liquors, by making the dregs fly up to the top, 92.
The whigs owe all their wealth to wars and revo-
lutions, as the girl at Bartholomew fair gets a
penny by turning round with swords in her hand,
198. Changing a ministry is like repairing a
building; a necessary work; but makes a dust,
and disturbs the neighbourhood, 224. The whigs
raise the spirits of their friends, recall their strag-
glers, and unite their numbers, by sound and im-
pudence; as bees assemble and cling together at
the noise of brass, vi. 185. An author that puts
words together with regard to their cadence, not
their meaning, is like a fellow that nailed up
maps, some sideling, others upside down, the bet-
ter to adjust them to the paunels, 187. A writer
with a weak head and corrupt heart is like a hireling
jade, dull and yet vicious, 197. After ten glorious
campaigns, England (like the sick man) was just
expiring with all sorts of good symptoms, v. 271.
England, impoverished by an expensive war, will
have the comfort of seeing a few rags hung up in
Westminster-hall; and of boasting, as beggars do,
that their grandfathers were rich and great, 313.
This kingdom dieted its own healthy body into a
consumption, by plying it with physick instead of
food, 315. The Dutch securing to themselves
part of the king of Spain's dominions, for whom
they fought, and calling him to guaranty the
treaty, is like the soldier who robbed the farmer
of his poultry, and made him wait at table, vi. 14.
With all its successes, will be like the duke, who
lost most of his winning at the groom-porter's by
a sharper who swept it away into his hat, 16.
Bishop Burnett's alarms about popery are like the
watchman's thumps at your door, a proof that
your door is fast, not that thieves are breaking in,

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viii. 129. Taking off the test in Ireland to make
it go down the better in England, is like giving a
new medicine to a dog before it is prescribed to a
human creature, xiii. 108; and was as ill policy
as cutting down in a garden the only hedge which
shelters from the north, xii. 5. The dissenters
attending the bill against the clergy in a kind of
triumph, are like the man, who, being kicked
down stairs, comforted himself with seeing his
friend kicked down after him, xiii. 154,

The
English cram one syllable, and cut off the rest, as
the owl fattened her mice after she had bit off
their legs to prevent their running away, viii. 186.
Objecting to the Christian religion on account of
any article which appears not agreeable to our
-own corrupted reason, is as wise as if a man, who
dislikes one law of his country, should determine
to obey no law at all, xiv. 21. The rich are, in
troublesome times, often of no use but to be plun-
dered, like some sort of birds, who are good for
nothing but their feathers, 97. Religion, like all
other things, is soonest put out of countenance by
being ridiculed, 124. The vapid venom sprink-
led over some paltry publications, like the dying
impotent bite of a trodden benumbed snake, may
be nauseous and offensive, but cannot be very
dangerous, iv. 47. Plying an insipid worthless
tract with grave and learned answers, is like fling-
ing a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of
being bruised, by its littleness lodges under it un-
hurt, 48. Raillery, the finest part of conversation,
is frequently perverted to repartee, as an expensive
fashion always produces some paltry imitation,
viii. 52. To engage in a bank that has neither
act of parliament, charter, nor lands to support it,
is like sending a ship to sea without a bottom,
xii. 27. In poetry, the smallest quantity of reli-
gion, like a single drop of malt liquor in claret,

will muddy and discompose the brightest genius,
viii. 61. Philosophy, and other parts of learning,
are as necessary to a good poet, as a knowledge of
the theory of light to a painter, 65. Flowers of
wit should spring, as those in a garden do, from
their own root and stem, without foreign assist-
ance, 66. Barren wits take in the thoughts of
others, in order to draw forth their own, as dry
pumps will not play till water is thrown into
them, ibid. Abstracts, abridgements, &rc., have
the same use as burning glasses; they collect the
diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and
make them point with warmth and quickness
upon the reader's imagination, 67. Authors are
to be used like lobsters; you must look for the
best meat in their tails, and lay the bodies back
again in the dish, ibid. Those who read only to
borrow, i.e. to steal, are like the cunning thieves
who cut off the portmanteau from behind, with-
out staying to dive into the owner's pockets, ibid.
A good poem may be tried like a sound pipkin;
if it rings well upon the knuckle, it is without
flaw, 68. A wise man makes even his diversions
an improvement to him, like the inimitable ma-
nagement of the bee, which does the whole busi-
ness of life at once, and at the same time both
feeds, and works, and diverts itself, 70. An
author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for
having a rag about him, 73. The Dean's asso-
ciating indiscriminately with all parties occasioned
his being used like the sober man with the drunken
face; he had the scandal of the vice, without the
satisfaction, xv. 64. As wounds of the body
which bleed inwardly are the most fatal to it, so,
in repentance, those of the mind are more des-
'tructive to the body of sin, xiv. 7. Ministers sel-
dom give themselves the trouble of recording the
important parts of their own administration; like

the masters of a puppetshow, despising those mo-
tions which fill common spectators with wonder
and delight, vi. 264. Great breaches in govern-
ment are like vices in a man, which seldom end
but with himself, 351. When a minister grows
enormously rich, the publick is proportionably
poor; as, in a private family, the steward always
thrives the fastest, when the lord is running out,
xii. 286. In Wood's halfpence, the nation did
not discover the serpent in the brass, but were
ready to offer incense to it, xiv. 149. Some ale-
sellers, when they have got a vogue for their li-
quor, think their credit will put off the worst they
can buy, till their customers forsake them; as the
drapers, in a general mourning, die black their old
damaged goods, sell them at double rates, and
then complain that they are ready to starve by the
continuance of the mourning, xii. 270. General
methods laid down for improving the trade of
Ireland, as absurd as if an empirick, knowing that
exercise promoted health, should prescribe to his
patient in the gout to walk ten miles, xiii. 59.
Women revel on Indian poisons, as starlings grow
fat with henbane, 60. The private virtues of a
courtier, for want of room and time to operate,
are (like old clothes) laid up in a chest, against a
reverse of fortune; but (like them) unless some-
times turned and aired, are apt to be tarnished or
moth-eaten, xiv. 243. Swift cured of loving Eng-
land, as the fellow was of his ague, by getting
himself whipped through the town, xvi. 110,
Men of great parts unfortunate in the manage.
ment of business, because they are apt to go out
of the common road; as a blunt ivory knife di-
vides a sheet of paper evenly, while a penknife
often goes out of the crease, i. 150. xvi. 205.
The Dutch are like a knot of sharpers among
honest gentlemen, who think they understand

play, and are bubbled of their money, xix. 77,
The inviting indigent foreigners into England,
without having lands to give them, is putting
them in the situation of children dropped at the
doors of private person, who become a burden to
the parish, vii. 130.
The nation no otherwise
richer by such an importation than a man can be
said to be fatter by a wen, which intercepts the
nourishment that should diffuse itself through the
whole body, 131. A wise man ought to have
money in his head, but not in his heart, xviii. 314.
National corruption must be purged by national
calamities, 333. Conversing only on one side ge-
nerally gives our thoughts the same turu, just as
the jaundice makes those that have it think all
things yellow, iv. 277. The aversion of a dis-
carded ministry to any government but their own
is unalterable; like some rivers, that are said to
pass through without mingling with the sea;
though disappearing for a time, they arise the
same and never change their nature, iv. 319.
When those who have cast off all hope desire
their impartial friends to embark with them
against their prince, it is as absurd as if a man
who was flying his country for having committed
a murder should desire all his acquaintance to ac-
company him, vi. 72. Bishop Fleetwood's sermon
on the death of the duke of Gloucester, by the
help of a preface, passed for a tory discourse in
one reign, and, by omitting the preface, that
author appeared a whig in another; thus, by
changing the position the picture represents either
the pope or the devil, the cardinal or the fool, vi.
95. Company is often like bottled liquors, where
the light and windy parts hurry to the head and
fix in froth, xii. 40. Quarrelling with a peace
not exactly to our minds, is like sueing one who
had put out a great fire for lost goods or damaged

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