Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/58

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OW of what necessity the foregoing project may prove, will appear from this single consideration, that nothing is of equal consequence to the success of our works, as speed and dispatch. Great pity it is that solid brains are not like other solid bodies, constantly endowed with a velocity in sinking proportioned to their heaviness: for it is with the flowers of the bathos, as with those of nature, which if the careful gardener brings not hastily to market in the morning, must unprofitably perish and wither before night. And of all our productions none is so short-lived as the dedication and panegyrick, which are often but the praise of a day, and become by the next utterly useless, improper, indecent, and false. This is the more to be lamented, inasmuch as these two are the sorts, whereon in a manner depends that profit, which must still be remembered to be the main end of our writers and speakers.

We shall therefore employ this chapter in showing the quickest method of composing them; after which we will teach a short way to epic poetry. And these being confessedly the works of most importance and difficulty, it is presumed we may leave the rest to each author's own learning or practice.

First, of panegyrick. Every man is honourable, who is so by law, custom, or title. The publick are better judges of what is honourable than private men. The