Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/14

 besides a thousand, nay, for ought I know, more than a thousand calamities might have ensued; I need not (I believe) enumerate them to you; but, to be plain with you, no man nor woman would (with their eyes open) be obliged to show all they had to Mr. Manley. These I think sufficient reasons for sending it in the manner I do; but submit them and myself to your candour and censure.

The paper, I believe, you'll find very artfully written, and a great deal couched under the appearance (I own at first) of blunders, and a silly tale. For who, with half an eye, may not perceive, that by the old woman's being drowned at Ratcliff-highway, and not dead yet, is meant the church, which may be sunk or drowned, but in all probability will rise again. Then the man, who was followed, and overtaken, is easily guessed at. He could not tell (the ingenious author says) whether she was dead: true! but may be he will tell soon. But then the author goes on (who must be supposed a high churchman) and inquires of a man riding a horseback upon a mare. That's preposterous, and must allude to a great man who has been guilty (or he is foully belied) of very preposterous actions; when the author comes up to him, the man takes him for a robber, or tory, and ran from him, but you find he pursued him furiously. Mark that: and the horse. — This is indeed carrying a figure farther than Homer does: he makes the shield or its device an epithet sometimes to his warriour, but never, as I remember, puts it in place of the person; but there is a figure for this in rhetorick, which I own I do not remember; by which we often say, He is a good fiddle, or rather, as by the gown is often meant ticular