or my sake;
Our humour seem for one another made,
And all things else in equal ballance laid;
I love him too, and could vouchsafe to wear
The matrimonial hoop, but that I fear
His love should not continue, cause I'm told,
That women sooner far than men grow old;
I, by some years, am eldest of the two,
Therefore, pray Sirs, advise me what to do.

_Ans._ If 'tis your age alone retards your love,
You may with ease that groundless fear remove;
For if you're older, you are wiser too,
Since few in wit must hope to equal you.
You may securely, therefore, crown a joy,
Not all the plagues of Hymen can destroy,
For tho' in marriage some unhappy be,
They are not, sure, so fair, so wise as thee.

CHAPTER III.

Swift--"Tale of a Tub"--Essays--Gulliver's Travels--Variety of Swift's
Humour--Riddles--Stella's Wit--Directions for Servants--Arbuthnot.

The year 1667 saw the birth of Swift, one of the most highly gifted and
successful humorists any country ever produced. A bright fancy runs like
a vein of gold through nearly all his writings, and enriches the wide
and varied field upon which he enters. He says of himself--

"Swift had the sin of wit, no venial crime;
Nay, 'tis affirmed he sometimes dealt in rhyme:
Humour and mirth had place in all he writ,
He reconciled divinity and wit."

Whether religion, politics, social follies, or domestic peculiarities
come before him, he was irresistibly tempted to regard them in a
ludicrous point of view. He observes--

"It is my peculiar case to be often under a temptation to be witty,
upon occasions where I could be neither wise nor sound, nor
anything to the matter in hand."

This general tendency was the foundation of his fortunes, and gained him
the favour of Sir William Temple, and of such noblemen as Berkeley,
Oxford, and Bolingbroke. They could nowhere find so pleasant a
companion, for his natural talent was improved by cultivation, and it is
when humour is united with learning--a rare combination--that it attains
its highest excellence. There was much classical erudition at that day,
and it was exhibited by men of letters in their ordinary conversation in
a way which would appear to us pedantic. Thus many of Swift's best
sayings turned on an allusion to some ancient author, as when speaking
of the emptiness of modern writers, who depend upon compilations and