Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/140

 heart in one company, and with great familiarity retailed them in another. Above all, they constantly attended those committees of senators, who are silent in the house, and loud in the coffee-house; where they nightly adjourn to chew the cud of politicks, and are encompassed with a ring of disciples, who lie in wait to catch up their droppings. The three brothers had acquired forty other qualifications of the like stamp, too tedious to recount, and by consequence were justly reckoned the most accomplished persons in the town: but all would not suffice, and the ladies aforesaid continued still inflexible. To clear up which difficulty I must, with the reader's good leave and patience, have recourse to some points of weight, which the authors of that age have not sufficiently illustrated.

For, about this time it happened a sect arose, whose tenets obtained and spread very far, especially in the grande monde, and among every body of good fashion. They worshiped a sort of idol, who, as their doctrine delivered, did daily create men by a kind of manufactory operation. This idol they placed in the highest part of the house, on an altar erected about three foot: he was shown in the posture of a Persian emperor, sitting on a superficies, with his legs interwoven under him. This god had a goose for his ensign; whence it is, that some learned men pretend to deduce his original from Jupiter Capitolinus. At his left hand, beneath the altar, Hell seemed to open, and catch at the animals the idol was creating; to prevent which, certain