Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/524

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488
THE LIFE

der on! they cannot shock thee more, than decency has been shocked by thee. How have thy Houyhnhnms thrown thy judgment from its seat, and laid thy imagination in the mire? In what ordure hast thou dipped thy pencil? What a monster hast thou made of the

Human face divine?Milton.

This writer has so satirized human nature, as to give a demonstration in himself, that it deserves to be satirized." In answer to which I shall address him in his own way — O doctor Young, how has thy prejudice thrown thy judgment from its seat, and let thy imagination hurry thee beyond all bounds of common sense! In what black composition of spleen and envy hast thou dipped thy pen! What a monstrous character hast thou given of

One of the noblest men
That ever lived in the tide of times.Shakspeare.

Thou hast so satirized this great man, as to show that thou thyself deservest the utmost severity of satire. After such a string of poetical epiphonemas, what is the charge which he brings against Swift? It is all contained in these words — "What a monster hast thou made, of the human face divine!" Now as Dr. Young himself, and all the world must have allowed, that the human face can have no claim to the epithet of divine, unless when animated by the divine particle within us, how can he be said to make a monstrous representation of the human face divine, who first supposes the divine part to be withdrawn, which entitles it to that appellation, and substitutes in its place the mind of a brute? Must not the human countenance in this case lose all that beauty and expression, which it derives from the

soul's