Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/408

deanery, he set down daily in a journal kept for that purpose, all the instances he could perceive of the dean's parsimony; which in a fortnight arose to a considerable amount. Armed with these proofs, he one day took an opportunity of asking the dean, whether he recollected a discourse which had passed between them on the strand, relative to old age and avarice, and the solemn engagement he had made him enter into upon that occasion. Swift, as one suddenly alarmed, answered with precipitation, "Yes, I remember it very well — Why — do you perceive any thing of that sort in me?" You shall be judge yourself, said the doctor — read over that paper, and see whether it is not high time I should now perform my promise. The dean read over the articles with a countenance in which shame and despondency were blended. When he had done, he leaned his head upon his hand, with his eyes cast on the ground, and remained for some time buried in profound thought; at last he just lifted up his eyes, without changing his posture, and casting a side glance at the doctor, with a most significant look, asked him — "Doctor — "did you never read Gilblas?" alluding to the famous story of a similar conduct of his toward the archbishop, when he was his secretary, which lost him his post. After such a scene, the reader will easily conclude, that the disease was past remedy; and that the doctor, like poor Gilblas, would probably not continue long in favour. Thus was lord Bolingbroke's observation upon a passage in one of Swift's letters fully verified; where he says, he had made a maxim which ought to be written in letters of diamond, "That a wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart." To which his

lordship