Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/198

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SECT. VII.

A DIGRESSION IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS.

I HAVE sometimes heard of an iliad in a nutshell; but it has been my fortune to have much oftener seen a nut-shell in an iliad. There is no doubt that human life has received most wonderful advantages from both; but to which of the two the world is chiefly indebted, I shall leave among the curious, as a problem worthy of their utmost inquiry. For the invention of the latter, I think the commonwealth of learning is chiefly obliged to the great modern improvement of digressions: the late refinements in knowledge, running parallel to those of diet in our nation, which, among men of a judicious taste, are dressed up in various compounds, consisting in^[1] soups and olios, fricassees, and ragousts.

It is true, there is a sort of morose, detracting, ill-bred people, who pretend utterly to disrelish these polite innovations; and as to the similitude from diet, they allow the parallel, but are so bold^[2] to pronounce the example itself, a corruption and degeneracy of taste. They tell us, that the fashion of jumbling fifty things together in a dish, was at first introduced, in compliance^[3] to a depraved and de-

1. 'Consisting in,' is not an English phrase; it should be, 'consisting of, &c.'
2. This is an inaccurate mode of speech frequently used by our author, in omitting the 'as;' it should be, 'so bold as to pronounce,' &c.
3. In compliance to——better——'in compliance with,' &c.

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