Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/252

242 were not in every hand: for instance, one lady can give an answer better than ask a question: one gentleman is happy at a reply; another excels in a rejoinder: one can revive a languishing conversation by a sudden surprising sentence; another is more dexterous in seconding; a third can fill up the gap with laughing, or commending what has been said: thus fresh hints may be started, and the ball of the discourse kept up.

But alas! this is too seldom the case, even in the most select companies. How often do we see at court, at publick visiting days, at great men's levees, and other places of general meeting, that the conversation falls, and drops to nothing, like a fire without supply of fuel! This is what we all ought to lament; and against this dangerous evil I take upon me to affirm, that I have in the following papers provided an infallibly remedy.

It was in the year 1695, and the sixth of his late majesty king the Third of ever glorious and immortal memory, who rescued three kingdoms from popery and slavery, when, being about the age of six and thirty, my judgment mature, of good reputation in the world, and well acquainted with the best families in town, I determined to spend five mornings, to dine four times, pass three afternoons, and six evenings every week, in the houses of the most polite families, of which I would confine myself to fifty; only changing as the masters or ladies died, or left the town, or grew out of vogue, or sunk in their fortunes, or (which to me was of the highest moment) became disaffected to the government; which practice I have followed ever since to this very day; except when I happened to be sick, or in the spleen upon cloudy weather, and except when