Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/268

260 am of opinion we suffer in our health by it: I believe our corrupted air, and frequent thick fogs, are in a great measure owing to the common exposal of our wit; and that with good management, our poetical vapours might be carried off in a common drain, and fall into one quarter of the town, without infecting the whole, as the case is at present, to the great offence of our nobility and gentry, and others of nice noses. When writers of all sizes, like freemen of the city, are at liberty to throw out their filth and excrementitious productions, in every street as they please, what can the consequence be, but that the town must be poisoned, and become such another jakes, as, by report of great travellers, Edinburgh is at night, a thing well to be considered in these pestilential times.

I am not of the society for reformation of manners, but, without that pragmatical title, I should be glad to see some amendment in the matter before us: wherefore I humbly bespeak the favour of the lord mayor, the court of aldermen, and common council, together with the whole circle of arts in this town, and do recommend this affair to their most political consideration; and I persuade myself they will not be wanting in their best endeavours, when they can serve two such good ends at once, as both to keep the town sweet, and encourage poetry in it. Neither do I make any exceptions as to satirical poets and lampoon writers, in consideration of their office; for though, indeed, their business is to rake into kennels, and gather up the filth of streets and families, (in which respect they may be, for aught I know, as necessary to the town as scavengers, or chimneysweeps) yet I have observed