Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/418

408 A. They were made in the temple of Jupiter Hammon, by the Hamadryades ; one of them (if we may depend upon Baker's Chronicle) was sent as a present to a gentleman in Ham-shire, of the family of the Ham-iltons, who immediately sent it to Ham-pton court, where it was hung up by a string in the hall, by way of rarity, whence we have the English phrase ham-strung.

Thus did great Socrates improve the mind, By questions useful since to all mankind; For, when the purblind soul no farther saw, Than length of nose, into dark Nature's law, His method clear'd up all, enlarg'd the sight, And so he taught his pupils with day-light.

R. 8. The Rule of Interruption. Although the company be engaged in a discourse of the most serious consequence, it is, and may be lawful to interrupt them with a pun; ex. gr. Suppose them poring over a problem in the mathematicks; you may, without offence, ask them, "How go squares with them?" You may say too, "That, being too intent upon those figures, they are become cycloeid, i. e. sickly-eyed; for which they are a pack of logarithms, i. e. loggerheads." Vide R. 34.

R. 9. The Rule of Risibility. A man must be the first that laughs at his own pun; as Martial advises;

Qui studet alterius risum captare lepore, Imprimis rictum contrahat ipse suum. "He that would move another man to laughter Must first begin, and t'other soon comes after."

R. 10. The Rule of Retaliation obliges you, if a man makes fifty puns, to return all, or the most of them, in the same kind. As for instance: sir W ——