The Select Works of Jonathan Swift: Containing the Whole of His Poetical Works, the Tale of a Tab, Battle of the Books, Gulliver's Travels, Directions to Servants, Art of Punning, Etc, Volume 2

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Hector McLean, 1823
 

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Page 41 - He put this engine to our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill ; and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships ; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion...
Page 75 - ... since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage.
Page 345 - But, when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason, we were only possessed of some quality, fitted to increase our natural vices...
Page 21 - I knew their numbers increased ; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work, when, turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it : from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable....
Page 114 - Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with these reflections, when one of the reapers approaching within ten yards of the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next step I should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in two with his reaping-hook. And therefore when he was again about to move, I screamed as loud as fear could make me. Whereupon the huge creature trod short, and looking round about under him for some time, at last espied me as I lay on the...
Page 164 - She ordered the joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep, which being well pitched, to prevent leaking, was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of the palace. It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water, when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half an hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion...
Page 23 - I confess I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground.
Page 183 - Yet thus much I may be allowed to say in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favourable turn by many degrees than the strictness of truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis with so much justice recommends to an historian. I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light.
Page 348 - It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply ; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong...
Page 47 - ... These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity ; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far that there is hardly one of them who has not received a fall, and some of them two or three.

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