Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/103

Rh ill nature, spleen, and revenge, are those with whom her ladyship has been in league for many months: she has even fallen into the common weakness of unfortunate women, who have recourse to silly fellows called conjurers; or perhaps in imitation of her mother, her ladyship wanted a very witch; she would give any thing to converse with a real witch; at last she took up with a wizard, an ignorant creature, who pretends to deal with the stars, and, by corresponding with thief-catchers, helps people to their goods, when they have been stolen. To please her highness, he revived an old cheat, of making an image like the person she most hated; upon which image he would so far work by enchantment, that him it represented, from that moment should grow distempered, and languish out his short life in divers sorts of pains. Since the wizard was taken into the lady's pay, a certain great man has happened to be indisposed; by which means she remains very well satisfied with the experiment, and imagines this accident to be owing to the force of her enchantment, from which she promises herself still greater events. Though we laugh at the folly, we cannot but remark the malice of the attempt.

On Friday the sixteenth of November, the heads of the party met at the new palace, where the late viceroy recounted to them the happy disposition of affairs;