Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/471

Rh that in fact, females were rarely admitted into his house; and never came thither but upon very particular invitations, not excepting even Mrs. Johnson. The truth is, not one of those you are pleased to call his senators, ever presumed to approach him, till he very particularly signified his pleasure that they should, except his near kinswoman, Mrs. Whiteway, who was often with him, but not until the latter part of his life.

And yet, my lord, as the honour I bear you strongly inclines me to assent to your positions, wherever I can; I must own, that if keeping a great number of professed nominal mistresses, constitutes the complete idea of a seraglio, Swift kept a greater, and a much more extended one than the grand seignior. And I have had the honour to be admitted, more than once, to bear him company in his visits to them. But this I must add, in support of the credit of your judgment of his constitution, that his visits were always by daylight; and for the most part, in the most open and publick places of the city. But yet truth obliges me to own, that he also visited some of them in by-alleys, and under arches; places of long suspected fame. Let me add, that he kept strictly to that Turkish principle, of honouring none, but such as were bred up and occupied in some employment. One of these miistresses sold plums; another, hobnails; a third, tapes; a fourth, gingerbread; a fifth, knitted; a sixth, darned stockings; and a seventh, cobbled shoes; and so on, beyond my counting. And in all this detail of his amours, I take upon me to say, that the singularity of his taste, was as remarkably distinguished, as his genius was, in any, or all of his compositions. One of these mistresses wanted Rh