Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/20

xiv and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts; wherein I see myself accused of reflecting upon great state folks; of degrading human nature (for so they have still the confidence to style it) and of abusing the female sex. I find likewise, that the writers of those bundles are not agreed among themselves; for some of them will not allow me to be the author of my own travels; and others make me author of books, to which I am wholly a stranger.

I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to confoud the times, and mistake the dates of my several voyages and returns; neither assigning the true year, nor the true month, nor day of the month: and I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since the publication of my book; neither have I any copy left; however, I have sent you some corrections, which you may insert, if ever there should be a second edition: and yet I cannot stand to them; but shall leave that matter to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they please.

I hear some of our sea Yahoos find fault with my sea language, as not proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest mariners, and learned to speak as they did. But I have since found that the sea Yahoos are apt, like the land ones, to become newfangled in their words, which the latter change every year; insomuch, as I remember upon each return to my own country, their old dialect was so altered, that I could hardly understand the new. And I observe, when any Yahoos come from London out of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the other. If