Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/235

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THE LORD CARTERET.
225

money, the miserable condition of the people, with other topicks of the like nature; all which do equally concern both whig and tory; who, if they have any thing to lose, must be equally sufferers. Perhaps, one or two of these melancholy gentlemen, will sometimes venture to publish their thoughts in print: now I can by no means approve our usual custom of cursing and railing at this species of thinkers, under the names of tories, jacobites, papists, libellers, rebels, and the like.

This was the utter ruin of that poor, angry, bustling, well meaning mortal Pistorides; who lies equally under the contempt of both parties; with no other difference than a mixture of pity on one side, and of aversion on the other.

How has he been pelted, pestered, and pounded by one single wag, who promises never to forsake him, living or dead!

I was much pleased with the humour of a surgeon in this town; who having, in his own apprehension, received some great injustice from the earl of Galway, and despairing of revenge as well as relief, declared to all his friends, that he had set apart one hundred guineas, to purchase the earl's carcase from the sexton, whenever it should die, to make a skeleton of the bones, stuff the hide, and show them for threepence; and thus get vengeance for the injuries he had suffered by its owner.

Of the like spirit too often is that implacable race of wits; against whom there is no defence but innocence and philosophy, neither of which is likely to be at hand; and therefore the wounded have no where to fly for a cure, but to downright stupidity,

Vol. IX.
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a crazed