Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/255

think you would so soon see poor Tom stown under a tomb-stone. But as the mole crumbles the mold about her, so a man of small mold, before I am old, may molder away. Sometimes I've rav'd that I should revive; but physicians tell me, that when once the great artery has drawn the heart awry, we shall find the cor di all, in spite of all the highest cordial. — Brother, you are fond of Daffy's elixir; but, when death comes, the world will see that, in spite of Daffy, down Dilly^[1]. Whatever doctors may design by their medicines, a man in a dropsy drops he not, in spite of Goddard's drops, though none are reckoned such high drops? — I find death smells the blood of an Englishman: a fee faintly fumbled out will be a weak defence against his fee-fa-fum. P. T. are no letters in death's alphabet, he has not half a bit of either: he moves his sithe, but will not be moved by all our sighs. Every thing ought to put us in mind of death: Physicians affirm, that our very food breeds it in us; so that, in our dieting, we may be said to di eating. There is something ominous, not only in the names of diseases, as di-arrhœa, di-abetes, di-sentry; but even in the drugs designed to preserve our lives; as di-acodium, di-apente, di-ascordium. I perceive Dr. Howard (and I feel how hard) lay thumb on my pulse, then pulls it back, as if he saw lethum in my face. I see as bad in his; for sure there is no physick like a sick phiz. He thinks I shall decease before the day cease, but before I die, before the bell hath toll'd, and Tom Tollman is told that little Tom, though not old, has paid nature's toll, I do desire to give some advice to those that survive me. First,

1. A nickname of Tom Ashe's brother.