Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/394

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No woman hates a man for being in love with her; but many a woman hates a man for being a friend to her.

The eye of a critick is often, like a microscope, made so very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains, and minutest particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or seeing all at once the harmony.

A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough: a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.

The greatest things and the most praiseworthy, that can be done for the publick good, are not what require great parts, but great honesty: therefore for a king to make an amiable character, he needs only to be a man of common honesty, well advised.

Notwithstanding the common complaint of the knavery of men in power, I have known no great ministers, or men of parts and business, so wicked as their inferiours; their sense and knowledge preserve them from a hundred common rogueries; and when they become bad, it is generally more from the necessity of their situation, than from a natural bent to evil. XCV. What-