Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/472

436 an eye; another, a nose; a third, an arm; a fourth, a foot: a fifth, had all the attractions of Agnas Polypus; and a sixth, more than all those of Æsop's hump; and all of them as old at least as some of Lewis the XIVth's mistresses; and many of them much older. He saluted them with all becoming kindness; asked them how they did; how they throve; what stock they had, &c.; and as mistresses, all the world owns, are expensive things, it is certain he never saw his, but to his cost. If any of their ware were such as he could possibly make use of, or pretend to make use of, he always bought some; and paid for every halfpennyworth, at least sixpence, and for every pennyworth, a shilling. If their saleables were of another nature, he added something to their stock; with strict charges of industry and honesty. And I must once more own, for truth exacts it of me, that these mistresses were very numerous; insomuch, that there was scarce one street, or alley, or lane in Dublin, its suburbs, and its environs, that had not at least one or more of them. Some of these he named thus for distinction's sake, and partly for humour; Cancerina, Stumpanympha, Pullagowna, Futterilla, Flora, Stumpantha, &c. Pray, my lord, are Horace's Pyrrhas and Lydias to be named in a day with these? And yet I cannot say that any, or all of them, ever influenced him, either in the composition or publication of any of his poems; though I cannot tell whether they might not have occasioned a very celebrated love epistle, from a blind man, to one of Swift's favourite mistresses, called Stumpy, from the fame of her wooden leg.

What a glorious scene is here displayed of Swift's beneficence! To seek out objects in all quarters of the