Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/284

232 her eyes upon her son Wotton; to whom the fates had assigned a very short thread. Wotton, a young hero, whom an unknown father of mortal race, begot by stolen embraces with this goddess. He was the darling of his mother above all her children, and she resolved to go and comfort him. But first, according to the good old custom of deities, she cast about to change her shape, for fear the divinity of her countenance, might dazzle his mortal sight, and overcharge the rest of his senses. She therefore gathered up her person, into an octavo compass: her body grew white and arid, and split in pieces with dryness; the thick, turned into paste-board, and the thin, into paper; upon which, her parents and children artfully strewed a black juice, or decoction of gall and soot, in form of letters: her head, and voice, and spleen, kept their primitive form; and that, which before was a cover of skin, did still continue so. In this guise she marched on towards the moderns, undistinguishable in shape and dress from the divine Bentley, Wotton's dearest friend. Brave Wotton, said the goddess, why do our troops stand idle here, to spend their present vigour, and opportunity of this day? away, let us haste to the generals, and advise to give the onset immediately. Having spoke thus, she took the ugliest of her monsters, full glutted from her spleen, and flung it invisibly into his mouth, which, flying straight up into his head, squeezed out his eye-balls, gave him a distorted look, and half overturned his brain. Then she privately ordered two of her beloved children, Dulness and Ill-Manners, closely to attend his person in all encounters. Having thus accoutred