Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/390

378 by sound and impudence; as bees assemble and cling together at the noise of brass, 277. An author that puts words together with regard to their cadence, not their meaning, is like a fellow that nailed up maps, some sideling, others upside down, the better to adjust them to the pannels, 280. A writer with a weak head and corrupt heart is like a hireling jade, dull and yet vicious, 290. After ten glorious campaigns, England (like the sick man) was just expiring with all sorts of good symptoms, 349. England, impoverished by an expensive war, will have the comfort of seeing a few rags hung up in Westminster-hall; and of boasting, as beggars do, that their grandfathers were rich and great, 396. This kingdom dieted its own healthy body into a consumption, by plying it with physick instead of food, 399. The Dutch securing to themselves part of the king of Spain's dominions, for whom they fought, and calling him to guaranty the treaty, is like the soldier who robbed the farmer of his poultry, and made him wait at table, 425. With all its successes, will be like the duke, who lost most of his winning at the groom-porter's by a sharper who swept it away into his hat, 427. Bishop Burnet's alarms about popery are like the watchman's thumps at your door, a proof that your door is fast, not that thieves are breaking in, iv. 414. Taking off the test in Ireland to make it go down the better in England, is like giving a new medicine to a dog before it is prescribed to a human creature, v. 291; and was as ill policy as cutting down in a garden the only hedge which shelters from the north, x. 206. The dissenters attending the bill against the clergy in a kind of triumph, are like the man, who, being kicked down stairs, comforted himself with seeing his friend kicked down after him, ix. 258. The English cram one syllable, and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened her mice after she had bit off their legs to prevent their runnning away, v. 196. Objecting to the Christian religion on account of any article which appears not agreeable to our own corrupted reason, is as wise as if a man, who dislikes one law of his country, should determine to obey no law at all, x. 20. The rich are, in troublesome times, often of no use but to be plundered, like some sort of birds, who are good for nothing but their feathers, 101. Religion, like all other things, is soonest put out of countenance by being ridiculed, 130. The vapid venom sprinkled over some paltry publications, like the dying impotent bite of a trodden benumbed snake, may be nauseous and offensive, but cannot be very dangerous, xvi. 183. Plying an insipid worthless tract with grave and learned answers, is like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of being bruised, by its littleness lodges under it unhurt, 185. Raillery, the finest part of conversation, is frequently perverted to repartee, as an expensive fashion always produces some paltry imitation, v. 232. To engage in a bank that has neither act of parliament, charter, nor lands to support it, is like sending a ship to sea without a bottom, ix. 384. In poetry, the smallest quantity of religion, like a single drop of malt