Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/251

Rh Lewis the XIVth of France spent his life in turning a good name into a great.

Since the union of divinity and humanity is the great article of our religion, it is odd to see some clergymen in their writings of divinity, wholly devoid of humanity.

The Epicureans began to spread at Rome in the empire of Augustus, as the Socinians, and even the Epicureans too did in England toward the end of king Charles the Second's reign: which is reckoned, though very absurdly, our Augustan age. They both seem to be corruptions occasioned by luxury and peace, and by politeness beginning to decline.

Sometimes I read a book with pleasure, and detest the author.

At a bookseller's shop some time ago I saw a book with this title; "Poems by the author of the Choice." Not enduring to read a dozen lines, I asked the company with me, whether they had ever seen the book, or heard of the poem whence the author denominated himself; they were all as ignorant as I. But I find it common with these small dealers in wit and learning, to give themselves a title from their first adventure, as don Quixote usually did from his last. This arises from that great importance which every man supposes himself to be of.

One Dennis, commonly called the critick, who had writ a threepenny pamphlet against the power of France, being in the country, and hearing of a French privateer hovering about the coast, although he were twenty miles from the sea, fled to town, and told his friends, they need not wonder at his haste; for the king of France, having got intelligence where he was, had sent a privateer on purpose to catch him. Rh