Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/528

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492
THE LIFE

tuosoes: no leaders or followers of party and faction; no encouragers to vice by seducement or example; no dungeons, axes, gibbets, whippingposts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanicks; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fidlers, judges, or dancingmasters."

In another place, after having brought the whole state of affairs in England before the judgment seat of the king of Brobdingnag, he thus relates the sentiments of that wise and virtuous monarch on the occasion: "He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition could produce. His majesty in another audience was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: 'My little friend Grildrig, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk

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