but if those fail, I think you are to make use of your authority as censor, and by an annual index expurgatorius expunge all words and phrases that are offensive to good sense, and condemn those barbarous mutilations of vowels and syllables. In this last point the usual pretence is, that they spell as they speak: a noble standard for language! to depend upon the caprice of every coxcomb, who, because words are the clothing of our thoughts, cuts them out, and shapes them as he pleases, and changes them oftener than his dress. I believe all reasonable people would be content that such refiners were more sparing of their words and liberal in their syllables. On this head I should be glad you would bestow some advice upon several young readers in our churches, who, coming up from the university full fraught with admiration of our town politeness, will needs correct the style of our prayerbooks. In reading the absolution, they are very careful to say 'Pardons and absolves; and in the prayer for the royal family it must be endue'um, enrich'um, prosper'um, and bing'um; then in their sermons they use all the modern terms of art, sham, banter, mob, bubble, bully, cutting, shuffling, and palming; all which, and many more of the like stamp, as I have heard them often in the pulpit from some young sophisters, so I have read them in some of those sermons that have made a great noise of late. The design, it seems, is to avoid the dreadful imputation of pedantry; to show us that they know the town, understand men and manners, and have not been poring upon old unfashionable books in the university.

I should be glad to see you the instrument of introducing into our style that simplicity which is the best and truest ornament of most things in human life; which the politer ages always aimed at in their building and dress (simplex munditiis) as well as their productions of wit. It is manifest that all new affected modes of speech, whether borrowed from the court, the town, or the theatre, are the first perishing parts in any language, and, as I could prove by many hundred instances, have been so in ours. The writings of Hooker, who was a country clergyman, and of Parsons the Jesuit, both in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are in a style that, with very few allowances, would not offend any present reader; much more clear and intelligible than those of Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Robert Naunton, Osborn, Daniel the historian, and several others who writ later; but being men of the court, and affecting the phrases then in fashion, they are often either not to be understood, or appear perfectly ridiculous.

What remedies are to be applied to these evils I have not room to consider, having, I fear, already taken up most of your paper: besides, I think it is our office only to represent abuses, and yours to redress them. -I am, with great respect, Sir, yours, &c.

(From The Tatler, No. 230.)

Diversions of the Court of Lilliput. The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed with a slender white thread extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little.

This diversion is only practised by those persons who are candidates for great employments and high favour at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens), five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to shew their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the summerset several times together upon a trencher fixed on a rope which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par.

These diversions are often attended with fatal acci

dents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to shew their dexterity; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far that there is hardly one of them who has not received a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured that, a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would infallibly have broke his neck if one of the king's cushions that accidentally lay on the ground had not weakened the force of his fall.

There is likewise another diversion, which is only shewn before the emperor and empress and first minister, upon particular occasions. The emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads, of six inches long; one is blue, the other red, and the third green. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favour. The ceremony is performed in his majesty's great chamber of state, where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity, very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the new or old world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backward and forward, several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and his first minister the other; sometimes the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-coloured silk; the red is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice round about the middle, and you see few great persons about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles.

(From Gulliver's Travels.)

The Treasurer was doubtless Sir Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister, dismissed in 1717 through the intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope. The cushion was probably Sir Robert's interest with the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I. Walpole held both the orders of the Garter and the Bath, here ridiculed.

The Projectors in the Academy of Lagado. I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors, and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt in eight years more that he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me 'to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.' I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them. . .

...

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewise shewed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation; which he justified to me by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider. . . .

There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided.

The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said, perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work.

The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame, and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor shewed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences.

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country.

The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because, in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns. The other was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health as well as brevity; for it is plain that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people. . . .

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would serve as a universal language to be understood in all civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.

I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition and demonstration were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture. This the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along with it. But the success hath not hitherto been answerable, partly by some error in the quantum or composition, and partly by the perverseness of lads, to whom this bolus is so nauseous that they generally steal aside, and discharge it upwards before it can operate: neither have they been yet persuaded to use so long an abstinence as the prescription requires.

In the school of political projectors I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing in my judgment wholly out of their senses, which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the academy as to acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a most ingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole nature and system of government. This illustrious person had very usefully employed his studies in finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to which the several kinds of public administration are subject, by the vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those who are to obey. For instance, whereas all writers and reasoners have agreed that there is a strict universal resemblance between the natural and political body, can there be anything more evident than that the health of both must be preserved, and the diseases cured, by the same prescriptions? . . . This doctor therefore proposed that upon the meeting of a senate, certain physicians should attend at the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each day's debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the senate-house, attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines, and, before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them at the next meeting.

He likewise directed that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because, if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.

When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs thus cut off be interchanged, applying each to the head of his opposite party-man. indeed to be a work that requireth some exactness; but the professor assured us that if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible. For he argued thus that the two half brains being left to debate the

It seems

matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of those who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion and as to the difference of brains in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that it was a perfect trifle. (From Gulliver's Travels.)

From Journal to Stella.'

Did the bishop of London die in Wexford? poor gentleman! did he drink the waters? were you at his burial? was it a great funeral? so far from his friends! But he was very old: we shall all follow. And yet it was a pity, if God pleased. He was a good man; not very learned: I believe he died but poor. Did he leave any charity legacies? who held up his pall? was there a great sight of clergy? do they design a tomb for him? are you sure it was the bishop of London? because there is an elderly gentleman here that we give the same title to: or did you fancy all this in your water, as others do strange things in their wine? they say, these waters trouble the head, and make people imagine what never came to pass. Do you make no more of killing a bishop? are these your Whiggish tricks?—Yes, yes, I see you are in a fret. O faith, says you, saucy Presto, I'll break your head; what, can't one report what one hears without being made a jest and a laughing-stock? are these your English tricks, with a murrain?-and Sacheverell will be the next bishop?...

I was with the secretary this morning, who was in a mighty hurry, and went to Windsor in a chariot with lord-keeper; so I was not invited, and am forced to stay at home; but not at all against my will; for I could have gone, and would not. I dined in the city with one of my printers, for whom I got the Gazette, and am come home early; and have nothing to say to you more, but finish this letter, and not send it by the bellman. Days grow short, and the weather grows bad, and the town is splenetic, and things are so oddly contrived that I cannot be absent; otherwise I would go for a few days to Oxford, as I promised. They say, 'tis certain that Prior has been in France; nobody doubts it: I had not time to ask the secretary, he was in such haste. Well, I will take my leave of dearest MD for a while; for I must begin my next letter to-night consider that, young women; and pray be merry, and good girls, and love Presto. There is now but one business the ministry wants me for; and when that is done, I will take my leave of them. I never got a penny from them, nor expect it. In my opinion, some things stand very ticklish; I dare say nothing at this distance. Farewell, dear sirrahs, dearest lives there is peace and quiet with MD, and nowhere else. They have not leisure here to think of small things, which may ruin them; and I have been forward enough. Farewell again, dearest rogues: I am never happy but when I write or think of MD. I have enough of courts and ministers, and wish I were at Laracor and if I could with honour come away this moment, I would. Bernage came to see me to-day; he is just landed from Portugal, and come to raise recruits he looks very well, and seems pleased with his station and manner of life: he never saw London

nor England before; he is ravished with Kent, which was his first prospect when he landed. Farewell again, &c. &c. (Dated 24th and 25th August 1711.)

From 'Polite Conversation.'

It was in the year 1695, and the sixth of his late majesty King William the Third, of ever glorious and immortal memory, who rescued three kingdoms from popery and slavery, when, being about the age of sixand-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 I entertained four of each sex at my own lodgings once in a month, by way of retaliation.

I always kept a large table-book in my pocket; and as soon as I left the company I immediately entered the choicest expressions that passed during the visit: which, returning home, I transcribed in a fair hand, but somewhat enlarged; and had made the greatest part of my collection in twelve years, but not digested into any method, for this I found was a work of infinite labour, and what required the nicest judgment, and consequently could not be brought to any degree of perfection in less than sixteen years more.

Herein I resolved to exceed the advice of Horace, a Roman poet, which I have read in Mr Creech's admirable translation, that an author should keep his works nine years in his closet before he ventured to publish them and, finding that I still received some additional flowers of wit and language, although in a very small number, I determined to defer the publication, to pursue my design, and exhaust (if possible) the whole subject, that I might present a complete system to the world: for I am convinced by long experience that the critics will be as severe as their old envy against me can make them I foresee they will object that I have inserted many answers and replies which are neither witty, humorous, polite, nor authentic; and have omitted others that would have been highly useful as well as entertaining. But let them come to particulars, and I will boldly engage to confute their malice.

For these last six or seven years I have not been able to add above nine valuable sentences to enrich my collection from whence I conclude that what remains will amount only to a trifle. However, if after the publication of this work, any lady or gentleman, when they have read it, shall find the least thing of importance omitted, I desire they will please to supply my defects by communicating to me their discoveries; and their letters may be directed to Simon Wagstaff, Esq., at his lodgings next door to the Gloucester-head in St James's-street, paying the postage. In return of which favour, I shall make honourable mention of their names in a short preface to the second edition.

In the mean time, I cannot but with some pride, and much pleasure, congratulate with my dear country, which has outdone all the nations of Europe in advancing the

whole art of conversation to the greatest height it is capable of reaching; and therefore, being entirely convinced that the collection I now offer to the public is full and complete, I may at the same time boldly affirm, that the whole genius, humour, politeness, and eloquence of England are summed up in it; nor is the treasure small, wherein are to be found at least a thousand shining questions, answers, repartees, replies, and rejoinders, fitted to adorn every kind of discourse that an assembly of English ladies and gentlemen, met together for their mutual entertainment, can possibly want: especially when the several flowers shall be set off and improved by the speakers, with every circumstance of preface and circumlocution, in proper terms, and attended with praise, laughter, or admiration.

From "Thoughts on Various Subjects.' We have just religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our mind runs only on the bad ones.

When a true genius appeareth in the world, you may know him by this infallible sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

I am apt to think that, in the day of judgment, there will be small allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, or to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But some scruples in the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each.

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next: 'Future ages shall talk of this; this shall be famous to all posterity: whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side setteth up false lights, and maketh a great noise, that the enemy may believe them to be more numerous and strong than they really are.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, &c. beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

Censure is the tax a man payeth to, the public for being eminent.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before. Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

The common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter and

scarcity of words: for whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty than when a crowd is at the door.

To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. therefore deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man ought to conceal his vanity.

I

Every man desireth to live long, but no man would be old.

If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years past, I am in some concern for future ages, how any man will be learned, or any man a lawyer.

A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.

If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.

Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish: strange, so many hopeful princes, so many shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue if they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.

As universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems, I do not remember to have heard three good lies in all my conversation, even from those who were most celebrated in that faculty.

Sir Walter Scott's edition of Swift's Works (19 vols. 1814; 2nd ed. 1824) includes most of what was valuable in the editions of Hawkesworth and Sheridan; a new edition by Temple Scott, with biographical introduction by Mr Lecky, began in 1897 (vol. viii. 1899). Selections are by Traill (1884-85), Lewin (1886), H. Morley (1889-90), and Craik (1892). John Forster published vol. i. of a Life in 1875; and there are Lives by Craik (1882), Leslie Stephen (1882), Moriarty (1893), and Churton Collins (1893). See also Swift in Ireland, by R. Ashe King (1896), and Mr Herbert Paul's Men and Letters (1901)

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

John Arbuthnot, or ARBUTHNOTT (1667– 1735), the friend of Pope, Swift, Gay, and Prior, shared with his brother-wits-mostly keen Toriesin many humorous publications called forth chiefly by political events. His father was Episcopal parish minister of Arbuthnott in Kincardineshire, and was ejected after the Revolution; one of his brothers fought under Dundee at Killiecrankie, another in Mar's rebellion in 1715; and John himself was, according to Chesterfield, 'a Jacobite by prejudice, a republican by reflection and reasoning. Having studied at Aberdeen and University College, Oxford, he took a degree in medicine at St Andrews (1696); and, settling in London, where

before this he had taught mathematics, he became known as a wit and as author of an Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge, and an Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1700). Happening to be at Epsom when Prince George was taken ill there, Arbuthnot treated the case so successfully that he was made the prince's regular physician. In 1705 he was appointed physician to the queen. In 1715 Pope and he assisted Gay in the unlucky farce, Three Hours after Marriage. The satirical Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus, published in Pope's works (1741), was chiefly, if not wholly, written by Arbuthnot. The design of this work, as expounded by Pope, was to ridicule all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man of capacity who had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each. Cervantes was the model; but though the witty authors copied his grave irony with success, the fine humanity and genial imagination of the Spanish novelist are wholly wanting in Scriblerus. It is highly probable that the character of Cornelius Scriblerus suggested to Sterne the idea of Walter Shandy. His oddities and absurdities about the education of his son-in describing which Arbuthnot displays extensive and curious learningare worthy of Sterne. Useful hints are thrown out amidst the ridicule and pedantry of Scriblerus; and one might almost think the author was poking fun at object lessons' when we read that 'the old gentleman so contrived it, to make everything contribute to the improvement of his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather, Holland shirts and Flanders lace, English cloth lined with Indian silk; his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish. He was made to observe this, and daily catechised thereupon, which his father was wont to call "travelling at home." He never gave him a fig or an orange but he obliged him to give an account from what country it came.'

Another monument of Arbuthnot's wit and humour is his History of John Bull (1712), designed to ridicule the Duke of Marlborough and turn the nation against the French war. The allegory is well sustained, and the satirical allusions wonderfully happy, though the political disputes of that time have largely lost their interest. In the like ironical vein are his Treatise concerning the Altercation or Scolding of the Ancients and his Art of Political Lying. His wit, always pointed, is seldom acrimonious, and never without strong reasons personally offensive. Of his serious works, the most notable, besides medical treatises, was a series of dissertations on ancient coins, weights, and measures. He was singularly careless of his literary fame, published his best things anony