The works of Jonathan Swift, Volume 1

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G. Faulkner, 1742

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Page 97 - But still there is in this project a greater mischief behind; and we ought to beware of the woman's folly, who killed the hen that every morning laid her a golden egg. For, pray what would become of the race of men in the next age, if we had nothing to trust to beside the scrofulous, consumptive productions furnished by our men of wit and pleasure...
Page 56 - ... now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself; at length, worn to the stumps in the...
Page 108 - To conclude : whatever some may think of the great advantages to trade by this favourite scheme, I do very much apprehend, that in six months...
Page 271 - Beauty with more durable Qualities. You have but a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the World ; and as few months to be so in the eyes of a Husband, who is not a Fool ; for I hope you do not still dream of Charms and Raptures, which Marriage ever did, and ever will, put a sudden end to.
Page 186 - ... if it were once refined to a certain standard, perhaps there might be ways found out to fix it for ever, or at least till we are invaded and made a conquest by some other state...
Page 228 - This last piece of civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in danger of my neck by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the dirt, when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover him again. It...
Page 314 - ... a mind full of ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are always ready at the mouth ; so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty than when a crowd is at the door.
Page 187 - The period, wherein the English tongue received most improvement, I take to commence with the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign, and to conclude with the great rebellion in forty two.
Page 96 - 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 free-thinking, enemies to priestcraft, narrow principles, pedantry, and prejudices; who might be an ornament to the Court and Town. And then again, so great a number of able [bodied] divines might be a recruit to our fleet and armies.
Page 104 - 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?

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