Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/257

Rh which two deities they believed the strictest friendship was established.

I have one concluding favour to request of my reader; that he will not expect to be equally diverted and informed, by every line, or every page of this discourse; but give some allowance to the author's spleen, and short fits or intervals of dulness, as well as his own; and lay it seriously to his conscience, whether, if he were walking the streets in dirty weather, or a rainy day, he would allow it fair dealing, in folks at their ease from a window to criticise his gait, and ridicule his dress at such a juncture.

In my disposure of employments of the brain, I have thought fit to make invention the master, and to give method, and reason, the office of its lackeys. The cause of this distribution was, from observing it my peculiar case, to be often under a temptation of being witty upon occasions, where I could be neither wise, nor sound, nor any thing to the matter in hand. And I am too much a servant of the modern way, to neglect any such opportunities, whatever pains or improprieties I may be at, to introduce them. For I have observed, that from a laborious collection of seven hundred thirty-eight flowers, and shining hints of the best modern authors, digested with great reading into my book of common-places, I have not been able, after five years, to draw, hook, or force into common conversation, any more than a dozen. Of which dozen, the one moiety failed