Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/165

Rh I hope I have deserved so well of their whole body, as to meet with generous and tender usage from their hands. Supported by which expectation, I go on boldly to pursue those adventures, already so happily begun.





HAVE now, with much pains and study, conducted the reader to a period, where he must expect to hear of great revolutions. For no sooner had our learned brother, so often mentioned, got a warm house of his own over his head, than he began to look big, and take mightily upon him; insomuch, that unless the gentle reader, out of his great candour, will please a little to exalt his idea, I am afraid he will henceforth hardly know the hero of the play, when he happens to meet him; his part, his dress, and his mien being so much altered.

He told his brothers, he would have them to know that he was their elder, and consequently his father's sole heir; nay, a while after, he would not allow them to call him brother, but Mr. PETER; and then he must be styled father Peter; and sometimes, my lord PETER. To support this grandeur, which he soon began to consider could not be maintained without a better fonde, than what he was born to; after much thought, he cast about at last to turn projector and virtuoso, wherein he so well succeeded, that many famous discoveries, . II