The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, Volume 2

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J. Johnson, J. Nichols, R. Baldwin, Otridge and Son, J. Sewell, F. and C. Rivington, T. Payne, R. Faulder, G. and J. Robinson, R. Lea, J. Nunn, W. Cuthell, T. Egerton, ... [and 12 others], 1801

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Page 160 - But when a man's fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense is kicked out of doors, the first proselyte he makes is himself; and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within.
Page 373 - Asgill for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials? What other subject, through all art or nature, could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, they would have immediately sunk into silence and oblivion.
Page 209 - I am glad, answered the bee, to hear you grant at least that I am come honestly by my wings and my voice; for then, it seems, I am obliged to Heaven alone for my flights and my music; and Providence would never have bestowed on me two such gifts, without designing them for the noblest ends. I visit indeed all the flowers and blossoms of the field and...
Page 92 - ... 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, etc., with a penalty, in case of disobedience, too long here to insert.
Page 80 - Now, you are to understand, that these coats have two virtues contained in them ; one is, that with good wearing, they will last you fresh and sound as long as you live : the other is, that they will grow in the same proportion with your bodies, lengthening and widening of themselves, so as to be always fit.
Page 371 - Does the gospel anywhere prescribe a starched, squeezed countenance, a stiff formal gait, a singularity of manners and habit, or any affected modes of speech different from the reasonable part of mankind ? Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap, and to employ or divert...
Page 367 - ... are party and faction rooted in men's hearts no deeper than phrases borrowed from religion, or founded upon no firmer principles? and is our language so poor that we cannot find other terms to express them? are envy, pride, avarice and ambition such ill nomenclators, that they cannot furnish appellations for their owners?
Page 214 - Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an ass ; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes turned inward, as if she...
Page 154 - ... the very same principle, that influences a bully to break the windows of a whore who has jilted him, naturally stirs up a great prince to raise mighty armies, and dream of nothing but sieges, battles, and victories.
Page 210 - ... by what they have produced, you will hardly have countenance to bear you out in boasting of either. Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders' webs, may be imputed to their being forgotten, or neglected, or hid in a corner.

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