Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/156

148 take it for an equal affront, to talk either of kissing or kicking him, which has occasioned a thousand quarrels: however no body was ever so great a sufferer for faults, which he neither was, nor possibly could be guilty of.

In his religion he has thus much of the quaker, that he stands always covered, even in the presence of the king; in most other points a perfect idolater (4), although he endeavours to conceal it; for he is known to offer daily sacrifices to certain subterraneous nymphs, whom he worships in an humble posture, prone on his face, and stript stark naked; and so leaves his offerings behind him, which the priests (5) of those goddesses are careful enough to remove, upon certain seasons, with the utmost privacy at midnight, and from thence maintain themselves and families. In all urgent necessities and pressures, he applies himself to these deities, and sometimes even in the streets and highways, from an opinion that those powers have an influence in all places, although their peculiar residence be in caverns under ground. Upon these occasions, the fairest ladies will not refuse to lend their hands to assist him: for, although they are ashamed to have him seen in their company, or even so much as to hear him named; yet it is well known, that he is one of their constant followers.

In politicks, he always submits to what is uppermost; but he peruses pamphlets on both sides with great impartiality, though seldom till every body else has done with them.

His learning is of a mixed kind, and he may properly be called a helluo librorum, or another Jacobus de Voragine; though his studies are chiefly confined to