Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/64

58 As for similes and metaphors, they may be found all over the creation; the most ignorant may gather them, but the difficulty is in applying them. For this advise with your bookseller.

T may be thought that we should not wholly omit the drama, which makes so great and so lucrative a part of poetry. But this province is so well taken care of by the present managers of the theatre, that it is perfectly needless to suggest to them any other methods than they have already practiced for the advancement of the bathos.

Here therefore, in the name of all our brethren, let me return our sincere and humble thanks to the most august Mr. Barton Booth, the most serene Mr. Robert Wilks, and the most undaunted Mr. Colley Cibber; of whom let it be known, when the people of this age shall be ancestors, and to all the succession of our successors, that to this present day they continue to outdo even their own outdoings; and when the inevitable hand of sweeping time shall have brushed off all the works of to-day, may this testimony of a contemporary critick to their fame be extended as far as to-morrow.

Yet if to so wise an administration it be possible any thing can be added, it is that more ample and comprehensive scheme which Mr. Dennis and Mr. Gildon (the two greatest criticks and reformers then living)