Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/197

Rh their ambition is gratified where their appetite is so. Eating well is commonly, and with justice, called good living; and their rule is that of Horace,

Ut quocunque loco fueris, vixisse libenter Te dicas ——

And it must be allowed, as a standard, their honour lies in their stomach; as indeed I have always thought that, contrary to vulgar notions, the seat, not of honour only, but of most great qualities of the mind, as well as of the disorders of the body.

Give me leave to explain myself. I think I can reduce to this one principle all the properties of the mind; and, by the way, as I take our grand devourer of fire to have the best stomach of any man living, I conclude him the greatest person our age or any other has produced, not excepting Cato's daughter; nor shall time, although edax rerum, ever digest the memory of one who has a better appetite than even time itself. But to go on: Does not the stomach make men ambitious, covetous, amorous, obsequious, and timeserving? What made a certain judge keep his place on the bench when his brethren left it, but his sense of honour; i.e. his keen appetite? Does not the stomach alone carry all debates in both houses, and support parties, and make court-parasites lose their dinners sometimes, that they and theirs may dine the better all their lives after? Do not we use to say a man of honour stomachs an indignity? Is not English feeding the foundation of English bravery? and good claret, of fierté and French sprightliness?

In short, courage, honour, wit, and sense, and all arts and sciences, take their rise here; and this an Rh