Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/110

58 mythologised: the whale was interpreted to be Hobbes's Leviathan, which tosses and plays with all schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noisy, and wooden, and given to rotation: this is the leviathan, whence the terrible wits of our age are said to borrow their weapons. The ship in danger is easily understood to be its old antitype, the commonwealth. But how to analyse the tub, was a matter of difficulty: when, after long inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preserved; and it was decreed, that in order to prevent these leviathans from tossing and sporting with the commonwealth, which of itself is too apt to fluctuate, they should be diverted from that game by a Tale of a Tub. And, my genius being conceived to lie not unhappily that way, I had the honour done me to be engaged in the performance.

This is the sole design in publishing the following treatise, which I hope will serve for an interim of some months to employ those unquiet spirits, till the perfecting of that great work; into the secret of which, it is reasonable the courteous reader should have some little light.

It is intended, that a large academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand seven hundred forty and three persons: which, by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the current number of wits, in this island. These are to be disposed into the several schools of this academy, and there pursue those studies, to which their genius most inclines them. The undertaker himself will publish his proposals with all convenient speed; to which I shall refer the curious reader for a more parti-