Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/312

306 in the knowledge of simples; and I am of opinion, that he ought always to attend the censors of the college in their visitation of apothecaries shops.

I am told, that the new sect of herb-eaters intend to follow him into the fields, or to beg him for a clerk of their kitchen; and that there are many of them now thinking of turning their children into woods to graze with the cattle, in hopes to raise a healthy and moral race refined from the corruptions of this luxurious world.

He sings naturally several pretty tunes of his own composing, and with equal facility in the chromatick, inharmonick, and diatonick style; and consequently must be of infinite use to the academy in judging of the merits of their composers, and is the only person, that ought to decide between Cuzzoni and Faustina. I cannot omit his first notion of clothes, which he took to be the natural skins of the creatures that wore them, and seemed to be in great pain for the pulling off a stocking, thinking the poor man was a flaying.

I am not ignorant, that there are disaffected people, who say he is a pretender, and no genuine wild man. This calummy proceeds from the false notions they have of wild men, which they frame from such as they see about the town, whose actions are rather absurd than wild; therefore it will be incumbent on all young gentlemen who are ambitious to excel in this character, to copy this true original of nature. The senses of this wild man are vastly more acute, than those of a tame one; he can follow the track of a man, or any other beast of prey. A dog is an ass to