The Works of Dean Swift: Comprising A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, with Thoughts and Essays on Various Subjects, Together with The Dean's Advice to a Young Lady on Her Marriage

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Derby & Jackson, 1857 - 420 pages

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Page 75 - What is that which some call land, but a fine coat faced with green? or the sea, but a waistcoat of water-tabby.
Page 67 - ... the maggots are the best : it is a sack-posset, wherein the deeper you go you will find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But then, lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth and pay you with nothing but a worm.
Page 192 - By my troth, said the bee, the comparison will amount to a very good jest ; and you will do me a favour to let me know the reasons that all the world is pleased to use in so hopeful a dispute.
Page 82 - ... and, according to the laudable custom, gave rise to that fashion. Upon which the brothers, consulting their father's will, to their great astonishment, found these words : Item, I charge and command my said three sons to wear no sort of silver fringe upon or about their said coats, &c., with a penalty, in case of disobedience, too long here to insert.
Page 191 - Things were at this crisis, when a material accident fell out. For, upon the highest corner of a large window, there dwelt a certain spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruction of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before the gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some giant.
Page 127 - ... of transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he shall see occasion ; he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise, that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller's shelf ; there to be preserved neat and clean for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title fairly inscribed on a label ; never to be...
Page 82 - ... with a penalty, in case of disobedience, too long here to insert. However, after some pause, the brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who was well skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said should be nameless, that the same word which in the will is called fringe does also signify a broomstick, and doubtless ought to have the same interpretation in this paragraph.
Page 76 - As to his body, there can be no dispute; but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress. To instance no more: is not religion a cloak; honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt; self-love a surtout; vanity a shirt; and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipt down for the service of both?
Page 265 - GOOD manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.
Page 251 - The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet, when we want shoes.

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