Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/394

384 The large table in a very tottering condition.

But one chair in the house fit for sitting on, and that in a very ill state of health.

The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages.

Not a bit of mutton to be had in the country.

Want of beds, and a mutiny thereupon among the servants, till supplied from Kells.

An egregious want of all the most common necessary utensils.

Not a bit of turf this cold weather; and Mrs. Johnson and the dean in person, with all their servants, forced to assist at the bog in gathering up the wet bottoms of old clamps.

The grate in the ladies bedchamber broke, and forced to be removed, by which they were compelled to be without fire, the chimney smoking intolerably; and the dean's great coat was employed, to stop the wind from coming down the chimney, without which expedient they must have been starved to death.

A messenger sent a mile to borrow an old broken, tun-dish.

Bottles stopped with bits of wood and tow, instead of corks.

Not one utensil for a fire, except an old pair of tongs, which travels through the house, and is likewise employed to take the meat out of the pot, for want of a flesh fork.

Every servant an arrant thief as to victuals and drink, and every comer and goer as errant a thief of every thing he or she can lay their hands on.

The spit blunted with poking into bogs for timber, and tears the meat to pieces. Bellum