Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/362

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On Sunday last there was a noble entertainment in our great hall, where were present the parson and the farmer: the parson eat like a farmer, and the farmer like a parson: we refer you to the curious in calculations, to decide which eat most.

It is reported, that the minister christened a male child last week, but it wants confirmation.

This day a jackdaw, well known in the parish, was ordered close prisoner to a cage, for crying "Cuckold" to a justice of the quorum; and, the same evening, certain apples, for hissing in a disrespectful manner as they were roasting, were committed to lamb's wool. The same day the said justices caused a pig to be whipped to death, and eat the same, being convicted of squeaking on the 10th of June.

Divine service is continued in our parish as usual, though we have seldom the company of any of the neighbouring gentry; by whose manner of living it may be conjectured, that the advices from this place are not credited by them, or else regarded as matters of little consequence.

The minister, having observed his only daughter to seem too much affected with the intercourse of his bull and the cows of the parish, has ordered the ceremony for the future to be performed, not in his own court, but in the churchyard: where, at the first solemnity