Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/254

246 and with several intervals. His friends were about the bed, and he spoke to them thus:

"My Friends,

It is time for a man to look grave, when he has one foot there. I once had only a punnic fear of death; but of late I have pundred it more seriously. Every fit of coffing hath put me in mind of my coffin; though dissolute men seldomest think of dissolution. This is a very great alteration: I, that supported myself with good wine, must now be myself supported by a small bier. A fortune-teller once looked on my hand, and said, this man is to be a great traveller; he will soon be at the diet of Worms, and from thence go to Ratisbone. But now I understand his double meaning. I desire to be privately buried, for I think a publick funeral looks like Bury fair; and the rites of the dead too often prove wrong to the living. Methinks the word itself best expresses the number, neither few nor all. A dying man should not think of obsequies, but ob se quies. Little did I think