Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/50

38, far be it from me to think you Epicuri de grege porcum. I know indeed you are helluo, but 'tis librorum, as the learned Dr. Accepted Frewen, some time archbishop of York, was; and ingenii, as the quaint Dr. Offspring Blackall, now bishop of Exeter, is. Therefore let us return to the use which may be made of modern travels, and apply Mr. Morrison's to your condition.

You are now cast on an inhospitable island; no mathematical figures on the sand, no vestigia hominum to be seen; perhaps at this very time reduced to one single barrel of damaged biscuit, and short allowance even of salt water. What's to be done? Another in your condition would look about; perhaps he might find some potatoes; or get an old piece of iron, and make a harpoon, and if he found Higgon sleeping near the shore, strike him and eat him. The western islanders of Scotland say, 'tis good meat, and his train oil, bottled till it mantles, is a delicious beverage, if the inhabitants of Lapland are to be credited.

But this I know is too gross a pabulum for one, who (as the chameleon lives on air) has always hitherto lived on wit; and whose friends (God be thanked) design he should continue to do so, and on nothing else. Therefore I would advise you to fall upon old Joan; eat, do I live to bid thee; eat Addison : and when you have eat every body else, eat my lord lieutenant [he is something lean] God help the while; and though it will, for aught I know, be treason, there will be nobody left to hang you, unless you