Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/16

8 After which, laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. But in oratory the greatest art is to hide art,

But this must be the work of time, we must lay hold on all opportunities, and let slip no occasion; else we shall be forced to weave Penelope's web, unravel in the night, what we spun in the day. And therefore I have observed, that time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby, that we must take time (as we say) by the forelock, for when it is once past, there is no recalling it.

The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it. And at length death, that grim tyrant, stops us in the midst of our career. The greatest conquerors have at last been conquered by death, which spares none, from the sceptre to the spade:

All rivers go to the sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his army, to consider that in less than a hundred years, they would be all dead. Anacreon was choked with a grapestone; and violent joy kills as well as violent grief. There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy; yet Plato thought, that if virtue would appear to the world in her own native dress, all men would be enamoured with her. But now, since interest governs the world, and men neglect the golden mean, Jupiter himself,