apologize to the reader for repeating these oaths, because Swift's object in recording them was intended for anything but approbation of swearinga practice which, though accused of having been a swearer himself, he held in special contempt, and officers of the army (it must be added) along with it. He looked upon them as a set of ignorant coxcombs; and, doubtless, too many such persons are to be found mixed with their betters in the service, especially in the regiments raised in the provinces. The reader would be surprised if he knew how much ignorance of common writing and reading was betrayed in communications of country officers with head-quarters.

Fielding seems to have had his eye on this passage when he introduced his Ensign Northerton in Tom Jones. It is one of the happiest in Swift's verses; exquisite for its ease, its straightforwardness, its humour, its succession of pictures, its maidservant tone of mind.

MARY THE COOK-MAID'S LETTER TO
DR. SHERIDAN.3

Well, if ever I saw such another man since my mother bound my head! You a gentleman! marry come up! I wonder where you were bred. I'm sure such words do not become a man of your cloth;

I would not give such language to a dog, faith and troth.

Yes, you call'd my master a knave: fie, Mr. Sheridan! 't is a shame, For a parson, who should know better things, to come out with such a

name.

Knave in your teeth, Mr. Sheridan! 'tis both a shame and a sin ; And the Dean, my master, is an honester man than you and all your

kin:

He has more goodness in his little finger, than you have in your whole body:

My master is a parsonable man, and not a spindle-shank'd hoddydoddy.

And now, whereby I find you would fain make an excuse,
Because my master one day, in anger, call'd you a goose;
Which, and I am sure I have been his servant four years since October,
And he never call'd me worse than sweetheart, drunk or sober:
Not that I know his reverence was ever concern'd to my knowledge,
Though you and your come-rogues keep him out so late in your college.
You say you will eat grass on his grave: a christian eat grass!
Whereby you now confess yourself to be a goose or an ass :
But that's as much as to say, that my master should die before ye;
Well, well, that's as God pleases; and I don't believe that's a true

story:

And so say I told you so, and you may go tell my master; what

care I?

And I don't care who knows it; 't is all one to Mary;

Every one knows that I love to tell truth and shame the devil;

I am but a poor servant; but I think gentlefolks should be civil. Besides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was

here:

I remember it was on a Tuesday of all days in the year.
And Saunders the man says you are always jesting and mocking :
Mary, said he, (one day as I was mending my master's stocking)
My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school,
I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool.
Saunders, said I, I would rather than a quart of ale

He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dish-clout to And now I must go and get Saunders to direct this letter;

For I write but a sad scrawl; but my sister Marget, she writes better.

Well, but I must run and make the bed, before my master comes from

prayers;

And see now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming up stairs; Whereof I could say more to your verses, if I could write written

hand:

And so I remain in a civil way, your servant to command,

MARY.

3 Mary the Cook-maid's Letter. - Dr. Sheridan, one of Swift's friends and butts, was a schoolmaster of considerable wit and scholarship, and progenitor of a distinguished family, in which genius is hereditary. The closing words of the preceding note will apply still more characteristically to the present effusion. Swift delighted in showing his knowledge of servants, their phraseology, and ways of thinking: or rather, perhaps, it should be said, that he delighted in showing up every species of ignorance and self-importance; for he was equally au fait at the small talk of fine life, or what he called Polite Conversation; of which he has left a record, singular for the quantity of it, and startling, nowadays, when we consider the quality of the speakers. But his satire helped to reform the mode, if it did not very much improve the matter, Common-mindedness will be common-mindedness always, whether betrayed in the proverbial slang which he drove out of the drawing-room into the kitchen, or in the better-bred common-places of the chatterers of Mrs. Gore.

For I write but a sad scrawl; but my sister Marget, she writes better. This exquisite kind of irrelevancy, which I have no doubt is taken from the life, Swift was fond of. He had used it before with equal, if not greater felicity, in the masterly satire on Nunneries which he contributed to the Tatler (No. 32). See the passage in the Essay at the beginning of this volume, p. 20.

ANCIENT DRAMATISTS.5

TO DR. SHERIDAN.

Whate'er your predecessor taught us,
I have a great esteem for Plautus ;
And think your boys may gather there-hence
More wit and humour than from Terence.

But as to comic Aristophanes,

The rogue too vicious and too pròphane is.
I went in vain to look for Eupolis

Down in the Strand, just where the New Pole is ; *
For I can tell you one thing, that I can
(You will not find it in the Vatican).
He and Cratinus us'd, as Horace says,
To take his greatest grandees fòr asses.
Poets, in those days, us'd to venture high ;
But these are lost full many a century.
Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence,
My judgment of the old comedians.

* The fact may be true, but the rhyme cost me some trouble.AUTHOR.

Proceed to tragics: first, Euripides
(An author where I sometimes dip a-days)
Is rightly censured by the Stagirite,
Who says his numbers do not fadge aright.
A friend of mine that author dèspises
So much, he swears the very best piece is,
For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's;
And that a woman, in these tragedies,
Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is.
At least, I'm well assur'd, that nò folk lays
The weight on him they do on Sophocles.
But, above all, I prefer Æschylus,

}

Whose moving touches, when they please kill us.
And now I find my muse but ill able,

To hold out longer in trissyllable.
I chose those rhymes out for their difficulty ;
Will you return as hard ones if I call t' ye?

5 Ancient Dramatists. - Swift is here emulating the rhymes of Butler.

ABROAD AND AT HOME.

As Thomas was cudgel'd one day by his wife,
He took to the street, and fled for his life:
Tom's three dearest friends came by in the squabble,
And sav'd him at once from the shrew and the rabble;
Then ventur'd to give him some sober advice; -
But Tom is a person of honour so nice,

Too wise to take counsel, too proud to take warning,
That he sent to all three a challenge next morning :
Three duels he fought, thrice ventur'd his life;
Went home, and was cudgel'd again by his wife.