Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/141

Rh certain of his priests hourly flung in pieces of the uninformed mass, or substance, and sometimes whole limbs already enlivened, which that horrid gulf insatiably swallowed, terrible to behold. The goose was also held a subaltern divinity, or deus minorum gentium, before whose shrine was sacrificed that creature, whose hourly food is human gore, and who is in so great renown abroad for being the delight and favourite of the Ægyptian Cercopithecus. Millions of these animals were cruelly slaughtered every day, to appease the hunger of that consuming deity. The chief idol was also worshiped as the inventor of the yard and needle; whether as the god of seamen, or on account of certain other mystical attributes, has not been sufficiently cleared.

The worshipers of this deity had also a system of their belief, which seemed to turn upon the following fundamentals. They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes, which invests every thing: that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the stars; and the stars are invested by the primum mobile. Look on this globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and fashionable dress. What is that which some call land, but a fine coat faced with green? or the sea, but a waistcoat of water-tabby? Proceed to the particular works of the creation, you will find how curious journeyman nature has been, to trim up the vegetable beaux: observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet of white sattin is worn by the birch. To conclude from all, what is man