Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/112

106 Among other things she says, "was it for this you bound your locks in paper durance?" Was it for this so much paper has been spent to secure the barrier treaty?

Methinks, already I your tears survey; Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded toast.

This describes the aspersions under which that good princess suffered, and the repentance which must have followed the dissolution of that treaty; and particularly levels at the refusal some people made to drink her majesty's health.

Sir Plume (a proper name for a soldier) has all the circumstances that agree with prince Eugene:

Sir Plume, of amber snuffbox justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane, With earnest eyes ——

'Tis remarkable, this general is a great taker of snuff, as well as towns; his conduct of the clouded cane gives him the honour which is so justly his due, of an exact conduct in battle, which is figured by his cane or truncheon, the ensign of a general. His "earnest eye," or the vivacity of his look, is so particularly remarkable in him, that this character could be mistaken for no other, had not the author purposely obscured it by the fictitious circumstances of a "round unthinking face."

Having now explained the chief characters of his human persons (for there are some others that will hereafter fall in by the by, in the sequel of this discourse) I shall next take in pieces his machinery, wherein the satire is wholly confined to ministers of state. The