Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/389

Rh lightest will be ever at the top, 180. A fashionable reader is like a fly, which, when driven from a honeypot, will immediately, with very good appetite, flight and finish his meal on an excrement, 203. It is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing at the bottom but dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass for wondrous deep, on no wiser a reason, than because it is wondrous dark, ibid. Satire is a glass, wherein beholders discover every body's face but their own, 210. Wit without knowledge is a sort of cream, which gathers in the night to the top, and by a skilful hand may be soon whipped into a froth; but, once scummed away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown to the hogs, ibid. Certain fortunetellers in North America read a man's destiny by peeping into his breech, 271. The absence of reason is usually supplied by some quality fitted to increase our natural vices, as a troubled stream reflects the image of an ill shapen body not only larger, but more distorted, vi. 292. Writers of travels, like dictionarymakers, are sunk into oblivion by the weight and bulk of those who come last, and therefore lie uppermost, 351. Opinions, like fashions, descend from those of quality down to the vulgar, where they are dropped and vanish, ii. 382. A prime genius attempting to write a history in a language which in a few years will scarce be understood, is like employing an excellent statuary to work upon mouldering stone, v. 81. Epithets, when used in poetry merely to fill up a line, are like steppingstones placed in a wide kennel; or like a heel-piece, that supports a cripple; or like a bridge that joins two parishes; or like the elephants placed by geographers in maps of Africa when they are at a loss for towns, viii. 171. The landed gentlemen, upon whose credit the funds were raised during the war, were in the condition of a young heir, out of whose estates a scrivener receives half the rent for interest, and has a mortgage on the whole, iii. 6. Lying is employed by the moderns for the gaining of power and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves for its loss; as animals use the same instruments to feed themselves when hungry, and to bite those that tread upon them, 11. The wings of falsehood, like those of a flying fish, are of no use but when moist, 13. Truth's attempting to equal the rapid progress of falsehood, is like a man's thinking of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or a physician's finding out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead, 15. Great changes affect commonwealths, as thunder does liquors, by making the dregs fly up to the top, 94. The whigs owe all their wealth to wars and revolutions, as the girl at Bartholomew fair gets a penny by turning round with swords in her hand, 214. Changing a ministry is like repairing a building; a necessary work; but makes a dust, and disturbs the neighbourhood, 244. The whigs raise the spirits of their friends, recall their stragglers, and unite their numbers, by