Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/252

244 Dr. Gee, prebendary of Westminster, who had writ a small paper against popery, being obliged to travel for his health, affected to disguise his person, and change his name, as he passed through Portugal, Spain, and Italy; telling all the English he met, that he was afraid of being murdered, or put into the inquisition. He was acting the same farce at Paris, till Mr. Prior (who was then secretary to the embassy) quite disconcerted the doctor, by maliciously discovering the secret; and offering to engage body for body, that not a creature would hurt him, or had ever heard of him or his pamphlet.

A chambermaid to a lady of my acquaintance, thirty miles from London, had the very same turn of thought, when talking with one of her fellow servants, she said; "I hear it is all over London already that I am going to leave my lady:" and so had a footman, who being newly married, desired his comrade to tell him freely what the town said of it.

When somebody was telling a certain great minister that people were discontented; "Poh, said he, half a dozen fools are prating in a coffeehouse, and presently think their own noise about their ears is made by the world."

The death of a private man is generally of so little importance to the world, that it cannot be a thing of great importance in itself; and yet I do not observe from the practice of mankind, that either philosophy or nature have sufficiently armed us against the fears which attend it. Neither do I find any thing able to reconcile us to it, but extreme pain, shame, or despair; for poverty, imprisonment, ill fortune, grief, sickness, and old age, do generally fail.

Whence comes the custom of bidding a woman look