Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/162

154 He takes a pot of scalding oil, and throws it by grent ladlefuls directly at the ladies, without spoiling their clothes or burning their skins.

He takes any person of quality's child from two years old to six, and lets the child's own father or mother take a pike in their hands; then the artist takes the child in his arms, and tosses it upon the point of the pike, where it sticks to the great satisfaction of all spectators; and is then taken off without so much as a hole in his coat.

He mounts upon a scaffold just over the spectators, and from thence throws down a great quantity of large tiles and stones, which fall like so many pillows, without so much as discomposing either perukes or headdresses.

He takes any person of quality up to the said scaffold, which person pulls off his shoes, and leaps nine foot directly down on a board prepared on purpose, full of sharp spikes six inches long, without hurting his feet or damaging his stockings.

He places the said board on a chair, upon which a lady sits down with another lady in her lap, while the spikes, instead of entering into the under lady's flesh, will feel like a velvet cushion.

He takes any person of quality's footman, ties a rope about his bare neck, and draws him up by pullies to the ceiling, and there keeps him hanging as long as his master or the company pleases, the said footman, to the wonder and delight of all beholders, having a pot of ale in one hand and a pipe in the other; and when he is let down, there will not appear the least mark of the cord about his neck.

He bids a lady's maid put her finger into a cup of