Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/241

Rh too particularly to dilate; and being not able to call to mind, with that suddenness the occasion required, an authentick phrase for demanding the way to the back-side, he chose rather, as the most prudent course, to incur the penalty in such cases usually annexed. Neither was it possible for the united rhetorick of mankind, to prevail with him to make himself clean again; because having consulted the will upon this emergency, he met with a passage near the bottom (whether foisted in by the transcriber, is not known) which seemed to forbid it.

He made it a part of his religion, never to say grace to his meat ; nor could all the world persuade him, as the common phrase is, to eat his victuals like a Christian.

He bore a strange kind of appetite to snapdragon, and to the livid snuffs of a burning candle, which