Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/95

Rh of St. Mican's. Great was the concourse to hear him; but much greater the surprise to find how little his sermons answered the character the world had given of him. This could not miss being whispered to him: he made several efforts, in vain, to regain his credit: his sermons were still worse and worse liked: at length his church was almost forsaken, and he left to hold forth to very few but the old women.

"The man was at his wit's end to find the cause of this unaccountable change in him: at last he wisely judged it must be owing to the climate in which he writ; and to make proof of it, set out one Monday morning in the packetboat for Holyhead; there composed his sermon for next Sunday; and returning to Dublin on the eve, after having begged of some friends, out of mere charity, to assist at it, preached divinely well, to the utter astonishment of his auditory, charmed at the excellency of his performance. This miracle rung immediately over the whole city; and he, making use of the same happy stratagem every week, of composing at Holyhead what he was to deliver from the pulpit in Dublin, the doctor's name was up: all Dublin thronged to hear him; and persons of the best distinction resorted thither from all parts of the kingdom to see this second Livy.

"However, as the devil owed the doctor a spite, it chanced unfortunately for him, that he was obliged, for some slight indispositions, to take physick two or three several times on the very days the packet boat set out; and being thereby under the unhappy necessity of penning his Rh