gained. Take off the largest dishes and set them on with one hand,
to show the ladies your strength and vigour, but always do it
between two ladies that if the dish happens to slip, the soup or
sauce may fall on their clothes, and not daub the floor."

We think that he might have written "directions" for the masters of his
day, as by incidental allusions he makes, we find they were not
unaccustomed to beat their servants.

Sarcasm was Swift's foible. But we must remember that the age in which
he lived was that of Satire. Humour then took that form as in the latter
days of Rome. Critical acumen had attained a considerable height, but
the state of affairs was not sufficiently settled and tranquil to foster
mutual forbearance and amity. Swift, it must be granted, was not so
personal as most of his contemporaries, seeking in his wit rather to
amuse his friends than to wound his rivals. But his scoffing spirit made
him enemies--some of whom taking advantage of certain expressions on
church matters in "The Tale of a Tub" prejudiced Queen Anne, and placed
an insuperable obstacle in the way of his ambition. He writes of
himself.

"Had he but spared his tongue and pen
He might have rose like other men;
But power was never in his thought
And wealth he valued not a groat."

In his poem on his own death, written in 1731, he concludes with the
following general survey--

"Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein;
And seemed determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim
He lashed the vice, but spared the name:
No individual could repent
Where thousands equally meant;
His satire points out no defect
But what all mortals may correct:
For he abhorred that senseless tribe
Who call it humour, when they gibe:
He spared a hump or crooked nose
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
Some genuine dulness moved his pity
Unless it offered to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confessed
He ne'er offended with a jest;
But laughed to hear an idiot quote
A verse of Horace, learned by drote.
He knew a hundred pleasing stories
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories;
Was cheerful to his dying day,
And friends would let him have his way.
He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And showed by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much,
That kingdom he ha