Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/114

108 would be farther convinced that he meant the treasurer, may know him by his ensigns in the following line:

He raised his azure wand.

His sitting on the mast of a vessel shows his presiding over the South-Sea trade. When Ariel assigns to his sylphs all the posts about Belinda, what is more clearly described than the treasurer's disposing of all the places in the kingdom, and particularly about her majesty? But let us hear the lines:

——Ye spirits, to your charge repair, The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign, And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine: Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite lock.

He has here particularised the ladies and women of the bedchamber, the keeper of the cabinet, and her majesty's dresser, and impudently given nicknames to each. To put this matter beyond all dispute, the sylphs are said to be wondrous fond of place, in the canto following, where Ariel is perched uppermost, and all the rest take their places subordinately under him.

Here again I cannot but observe the excessive malignity of this author, who could not leave the character of Ariel without the same invidious stroke which he gave him in the character of the baron before:

Amaz'd, confus'd, he saw his pow'r expir'd, Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd.

being another prophecy that he should resign his place;