Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/267

Rh dictionary: whereas the case is quite otherwise with my collection of polite discourse; which, as I before observed, has descended by tradition for at least a hundred years, without any change in the phraseology. I therefore determined with myself to leave out the whole system of swearing; because both the male and female oaths are all perfectly well known and distinguished; new ones are easily learnt, and with a moderate share of discretion may be properly applied on every fit occasion. However, I must here upon this article of swearing most earnestly recommend to my male readers, that they would please a little to study variety. For it is the opinion of our most refined swearers, that the same oath or curse cannot, consistently with true politeness, be repeated above nine times in the same company, by the same person, and at one sitting.

I am far from desiring, or expecting, that all the polite and ingenious speeches contained in this work should, in the general conversation between ladies and gentlemen, come in so quick and so close as I have here delivered them. By no means: on the contrary, they ought to be husbanded better, and spread much thinner. Nor do I make the least question, but that, by a discreet and thrifty management, they may serve for the entertainment of a whole year to any person, who does not make too long or too frequent visits in the same family. The flowers of wit, fancy, wisdom, humour, and politeness, scattered in this volume, amount to one thousand seventy and four. Allowing then to every gentleman and lady thirty visiting families (not insisting upon fractions) there will want but a little of a hundred polite questions, answers, replies,. VIII.