Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/408

396 Now, if you will go on after this, in your old ways, and ruin your health, your fortune, and your reputation, it is no fault of mine. I have pointed out the road, which will lead you to riches and preferment; and that you may have no excuse from entering into this new course of life, upon pretence of doubting whether you can get a person properly qualified to feed you, and compose your new family, I will recommend you to John Gay, who is much better qualified to bring increase from a woman, than from a sum of money. But if he should be lazy, (and he is so fat, that there is some reason to doubt him) I will without fail supply you myself, that you may be under no disappointments. Bracton says, Conjunctio maris et fœminæ est jure naturæ. Vide Coke upon Littleton. Calvin's case, 1st vol. Reports.

This I send you from my closet at Richkings, where I am at leisure to attend serious affairs; but when one is in town, there are so many things to laugh at, that it is very difficult to compose one's thoughts, even long enough to write a letter of advice to a friend. If I see any man serious in that crowd, I look upon him for a very dull or designing fellow. By the by, I am of opinion, that folly and cunning are nearer allied than people are aware of. If a fool runs out his fortune, and is undone, we say, the poor man has been outwitted. Is it not as reasonable to say of a cunning rascal, who has lived miserably, and died hated and despised, to leave a great fortune behind him, that he has outwitted himself? In short, to be serious about those trifles which the majority of mankind think of consequence, seems to