Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/163

to make him easy, when he was sotting at every alehouse in town. I knew his last wife; she was a woman of breeding, good humour, and complaisance; knew how to live in the world: as for you, you look like a puppet moved by clockwork: your clothes hang upon you, as they were upon tenterhooks, and you come into a room as you were going to steal away a piss-pot: get you gone into the country to look after your mother's poultry, to milk the cows, churn the butter, and dress up nosegays for a holiday, and not meddle with matters, which you know no more of, than the signpost before your door: it is well known, that Hocus had an established reputation; he never swore an oath, nor told a lie in all his life; he is grateful to his benefactors, faithful to his friends, liberal to his dependants, and dutiful to his superiours; he values not your money more than the dust under his feet, but he hates to be abused. Once for all, Mrs. Mynx, leave off talking of Hocus, or I will pull out those saucer eyes of yours, and make that redstreak country face look as raw as an ox cheek upon a butcher's stall: remember, I say, that there are pillories and ducking-stools." With this away they flung, leaving Mrs. Bull no time to reply. No stone was left unturned to fright John from his composition: sometimes they spread reports at coffeehouses, that John and his wife were run mad; that they intended to give up house, and make over all their estate to Lewis Baboon^[1]; that John had been often heard talking to himself, and seen in the streets without shoes or stockings; that he did nothing from

1. and it was said, that the nation would at last be sacrificed to the ambition of France.

morning