140. Matthew Prior, 1664-1721. (Handbook, par. 184.)

A melodious versifier, displaying in his lighter pieces much wit and fancy. His Alma, or the progress of the mind, is a humorous philosophic poem in the style of Hudibras.

Charity.

Did sweeter sounds adorn my flowing tongue
Than ever man pronounced, or angels sung;
Had I all knowledge, human and divine,
That thought can reach, or science can define;
And had I power to give that knowledge birth,
In all the speeches of the babbling earth;
Did Shadrach's zeal my glowing breast inspire
To weary tortures, and rejoice in fire;
Or had I faith like that which Israel saw
When Moses gave them miracles and law:
Yet, gracious Charity! indulgent guest,
Were not thy power exerted in my breast,
Those speeches would send up unheeded prayer,
That scorn of life would be but wild despair;
A cymbal's sound were better than my voice;
My faith were form, my eloquence were noise.

Each other gift, which God on man bestows,
Its proper bound and due restriction knows;
To one fix'd purpose dedicates its power,
And, finishing its act, exists no more.
Thus, in obedience to what Heaven decrees,
Knowledge shall fail, and prophecy shall cease;
But lasting Charity's more ample sway.
Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay,

In happy triumph shall for ever live,

And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive.

Paraphrase of 1 Cor. xv.

The Stomach the Seat of the Soul.

As in a watch's fine machine,
Though many artful springs are seen;
The added movements, which declare
How full the moon, how old the year,
Derive their secondary power

From that which simply points the hour.

For, though those gim-cracks were away,

(Quare would not swear, but Quare would say)

However more reduc'd and plain,

The watch would still a watch remain :

But, if the horal-orbit ceases,

The whole stands still, or breaks to pieces;

Is now no longer what it was,

And you may e'en go sell the case.

So, if unprejudic'd you scan

The goings of this clockwork man,
You find a hundred movements made
By fine devices in his head;

But 'tis the stomach's solid stroke
That tells his being what's o'clock.
If you take off his rhetoric trigger,
He talks no more in mode and figure;
Or, clog his mathematic-wheel,
His buildings fall, his ship stands still;
Or, lastly, break his politic-weight,
His voice no longer rules the state:
Yet if these finer whims are gone,

Your clock, though plain, would still go on;
But spoil the engine of digestion,

And you entirely change the question.
Alma's affairs no power can mend;

The jest, alas! is at an end:
Soon ceases all the worldly bustle,
And you consign the corpse to Russell.b
Alma.

No longer shall the bodice aptly laced
From thy full bosom to thy slender waist
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.

Henry and Emina.

View not this spire by measure given
To buildings raised by common hands,
That fabric rises high to heaven,
Whose basis on devotion stands.

A watcomaker.

An undertaker.

141. Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745. (Handbook, pars. 189, 408, 523.) A writer remarkable for strength and purity of style, vigour of irony, and intimate knowledge of the weaknesses of human nature.

The Academy of Legado.

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.'

I heard a very warm debate between two professors, about the most commodious and effectual ways and means of raising money without grieving the subject. The first affirmed, the justest method would be, to lay a certain tax upon vices and folly; and the sum fixed upon every man to be rated, after the fairest manner, by a jury of his neighbours.' The second was of an opinion directly contrary: To tax those qualities of body and mind for which men chiefly value themselves; the rate to be more or less according to the degrees of excelling, the decision whereof should be left entirely to their own breast.' The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex. Wit, valour, and politeness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because they are qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his neighbour, or value them in himself, The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment. But con

stancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature, were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting.

To keep senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the members should raffle for employments; every man first taking an oath, and giving security, that he would vote for the court, whether he won or not; after which the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy. Thus, hope and expectation would be kept alive; none would complain of broken promises, but impute their disappointments wholly to fortune, whose shoulders are broader and stronger than those of a ministry. Gulliver's Travels.

He gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, would deserve better of his mankind and do more essential service to his country than this whole race of politicians put together.

Good Manners.

Ib.

Good-manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company. As the best law is founded upon reasons, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into good manners.

One principal part of this art is, to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and, those below us.

For instance, to press dither of the two former to eat or drink is a breach of manners; but a tradesman or a farmer must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome.

Pride, ill-nature, want of sense, are the three great sources of ill-manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or of what in the language of fools is called knowing the world.

As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings, so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needless and end

less way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them, and insupportable to every body else.

There is a pedantry in manners as in all arts and sciences, and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to. And if that kind of knowledge be a trifle in itself, the pedantry is the greater. For which reason I look upon fiddlers, heralds, masters of the ceremonies, etc., to be greater pedants than Lipsius or the elder Scaliger. . . .

A necessary part of good manners is a punctual observance of time at our own dwellings, or those of others, or at third places, whether upon matter of civility, business, or diversion. . . . I have known more than one ambassador and secretary with a very moderate portion of intellectuals, execute their offices with good success and applause, by the more force of exactness and regularity.

The Inconvenience of abolishing Christianity in England.

I am very sensible, what a weakness and presumption it is to reason against the general humour and disposition of the world. I remember it was with great justice, and a due regard to the freedom both of the public and the press, forbidden upon severe penalties to write or discourse or lay wagers against the Union, even before it was confirmed by parliament; because that was looked upon as a design to oppose the current of the people; which, besides the folly of it, is a manifest breach of the fundamental law that makes this majority of opinion the voice of God. In like manner, and for the very same reason, it may perhaps be neither safe nor prudent to argue against the abolishing of Christianity, at a juncture when all parties appear so unanimously determined upon the point; as we cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses and their writings. However, I know not how, whether from the affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature; but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this opinion.

But here I would not be mistaken, and must therefore be so bold as to borrow a distinction from the writers on the other side, when they make a difference between nominal and real Trinitarians. I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in defence of real Christianity, such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an influence upon