Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/391

Rh malt liquor in claret, will muddy and discompose the brightest genius, v. 242. Philosophy, and other parts of learning, are as necessary to a good poet, as a knowledge of the theory of light to a painter, 247. Flowers of wit should spring, as those in a garden do, from their own root and stem, without foreign assistance, 248. Barren wits take in the thoughts of others, in order to draw forth their own, as dry pumps will not play till water is thrown into them, ibid. Abstracts, abridgements, &c., have the same use as burning glasses; they collect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination, 249. Authors are to be used like lobsters; you must look for the best meat in their tails, and lay the bodies back again in the dish, ibid. Those who read only to borrow, i. e. to steal, are like the cunning thieves, who cut off the portmanteau from behind, without staying to dive into the owner's pockets, ibid. A good poem may be tried like a sound pipkin; if it rings well upon the knuckle, it is without flaw, 250. A wise man makes even his diversions an improvement to him, like the inimitable management of the bee, which does the whole business of life at once, and at the same time both feeds, and works, and diverts itself, 252. An author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him, 256. The dean's associating indiscriminately with all parties occasioned his being used like the sober man with the drunken face; he had the scandal of the vice, without the satisfaction, xi. 51. As wounds of the body which bleed inwardly are the most fatal to it, so, in repentance, those of the mind are more destructive to the body of sin, x. 5. Ministers seldom give themselves the trouble of recording the important parts of their own administration; like the masters of a puppetshow, despising those motions which fill common spectators with wonder and delight, iv. 277. Great breaches in government are like vices in a man, which seldom end but with himself, 371. When a minister grows enormously rich, the publick is proportionably poor; as, in a private family, the steward always thrives the fastest, when the lord is running out, x. 302. In Wood's halfpence, the nation did not discover the serpent in the brass, but were ready to offer incense to it, x. 156. Some alesellers, when they have got a vogue for their liquor, think their credit will put of the worst they can buy, till their customers forsake them; as the drapers, in a general mourning, die black their old damaged goods, sell them at double rates, and then complain that they are ready to starve by the continuance of the mourning, ix. 358. General methods laid down for improving the trade of Ireland, as absurd as if an empirick, knowing that exercise promoted health, should prescribe to his patient in the gout to walk ten miles, 367. Women revel on Indian poisons, as starlings grow fat with henbane, 368. The private virtues of a courtier, for want of room and time to operate, are (like old clothes) laid up in a chest, against