Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/159

Rh venture from a great number to produce a few, which, I am very confident, will put this question beyond dispute.

It well deserves considering, that these ancient writers, in treating enigmatically upon the subject, have generally fixed upon the very same hieroglyph, varying only the story, according to their affections, or their wit. For first; Pausanias is of opinion, that the perfection of writing correct was intirely owing to the institution of criticks; and, that he can possibly mean no other than the true critick, is, I think, manifest enough from the following description. He says, they were a race of men, who delighted to nibble at the superfluities, and excrescencies of books; which the learned at length observing, took warning, of their own accord, to lop the luxuriant, the rotten, the dead, the sapless, and the overgrown branches from their works. But now, all this he cunningly shades under the following allegory; that the Nauplians in Argos learned the art of pruning their vines, by observing, that when an ASS had browsed upon one of them, it thrived the better, and bore fairer fruit. But Herodotus, holding the very same hieroglyph, speaks much plainer, and almost in terminis. He has been so bold as to tax the true criticks, of ignorance and malice; telling us openly, for I think nothing can be plainer, that in the western part of Lybia, there were ASSES with horns: upon which relation Ctesias yet refines, mentioning the very same animal about India, adding, that whereas all other ASSES wanted a gall,