Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/195

Rh thought, as that of taking measures for good and evil from no other rule, than of opposition to him. That it was true, the testament of their good father, was very exact in what related to the wearing of their coats; yet it was no less penal and strict, in prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between them. And therefore, if straining a point were at all dispensable, it would certainly be so, rather to the advance of unity, than increase of contradiction.

MARTIN had still proceeded as gravely as he began, and doubtless would have delivered an admirable lecture of morality, which might have exceedingly contributed to my reader's repose both of body and mind, the true ultimate end of ethicks; but Jack was already gone a flight-shot beyond his patience. And as in scholastick disputes, nothing serves to rouse the spleen of him that opposes so much, as a kind of pedantick affected calmness in the respondent; disputants being for the most part like unequal scales, where the gravity of one side advances the lightness of the other, and causes it to fly up, and kick the beam: so it happened here, that the weight of Martin's argument exalted Jack's levity, and made him fly out and spurn against his brother's moderation. In short, Martin's patience put Jack in a rage; but that which most afflicted him, was, to observe his brother's coat so well reduced into the state of innocence; while his own was either wholly rent to his shirt; or those places, which had escaped his cruel clutches, were still in Peter's livery. So that he looked like a drunken beau, half rifled by bullies; or like a fresh tenant of Newgate, when he has refused the payment of garnish;