The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 09 Contributions to The Tatler, The Examiner, The Spectator, and The Intelligencer

"The keeper immediately set all in order again for another customer, which happened to be a famous prude, whom her parents after long threatenings, and much persuasion, had with...

"On the most rising part of the town there stands a huge house, big enough to contain the whole nation of which I am king. Our good brother E Tow O Koam king of the Rivers, is o...

I am not sensible of any material difference there is between those who call themselves the Old Whigs, and a great majority of the present Tories; at least by all I could ever f...

But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for _political lying;_ I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some circumstances of its birth and parents. A poli...

These contributions to the new "Tatler" are printed from the original periodical issue with the exception of No. 5, which is taken from the second edition of the reprint (1720),...

I heard myself censured the other day in a coffee-house, for seeming to glance in the letter to Crassus,[11] against a great man, who is still in employment, and likely to conti...

When I first undertook this paper, I was resolved to concern myself only with things, and not with persons. Whether I have kept or broken this resolution, I cannot recollect; an...

We have been very much perplexed here this evening, by two gentlemen who took upon them to talk as loud as if it were expected from them to entertain the company. Their subject...

I must now desire leave to say something to a gentleman, who has been pleased to publish a discourse against a paper of mine relating to the convocation.[10] He promises to set...

I confess myself so little a refiner in the politics, as not to be able to discover, what other motive besides obedience to the Queen, a sense of public danger, and a true love...

I never let slip an opportunity of endeavouring to convince the world, that I am not partial, and to confound the idle reproach of my being hired or directed what to write in de...

"I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed _Platonne_, the most unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her ta...

"P.S. You were complaining in that paper, that the clergy of Great-Britain had not yet learned to speak; a very great defect indeed; and therefore I shall think myself a well-de...

And to say truth, the way practised by several parishes in and about this town, of maintaining their clergy by voluntary subscriptions, is not only an indignity to the character...

But, God be thanked, they and their schemes are vanished, and "their places shall know them no more." When I think of that inundation of atheism, infidelity, profaneness and lic...

In the early times of Greece and Rome, the armies of those states were composed of their citizens, who took no pay, because the quarrel was their own; and therefore the war was...

Besides, I leave it to their consideration, whether, with all their zeal against the Church, they ought not to shew a little decency, and how far it consists with their reputati...

The new ministry, which came into power on the fall of the able administration of Godolphin in 1710, was the famous Oxford ministry headed by Harley and St. John. The new leader...

And here it may be worth inquiring what are the true characteristics of a faction, or how it is to be distinguished from that great body of the people who are friends to the con...

Hopes are natural to most men, especially to sanguine complexions, and among the various changes that happen in the course of public affairs, they are seldom without some ground...

In the third place, the Whigs accuse us of a design to bring in the Pretender; and to give it a greater air of probability, they suppose the Qu[een] to be a party in this design...

Besides, to confess the truth, our laws themselves are extremely defective in many articles, which I take to be one ill effect of our best possession, liberty. Some years ago, t...

There is one gentleman indeed, who has written three small pamphlets upon "the Management of the War," and "the Treaty of Peace:"[6] These I had intended to have bestowed a pape...

[Footnote 16: Mrs. Manley, in her "Memoirs of Europe towards the Close of the Eighth Century," has something very characteristic to say on this subject. Speaking of Somers under...

The other instance I intended to produce of decency and good nature, in the present House of Commons, relates to their most worthy Speaker;[8] who having unfortunately lost his...

I have hitherto confined myself to those endeavours for the good of the Church, which were common to all the leaders and principal men of our party; but if my paper were not dra...

Swift has been styled the Prince of Journalists. Like most titles whose aim is to express in modern words the character and achievements of a man of a past age, this phrase is n...

But if my design be to make mankind better, then I think it is my duty, at least I am sure it is the interest of those very courts and ministers, whose follies or vices I ridicu...

[Footnote 5: "The Observator" was founded by John Tutchin. The first number was issued April 1st, 1702, and it appeared, with some intervals, until July, 1712, though Tutchin hi...

It was pleasant enough to observe, that those who were the chief instruments of raising the noise, who started fears, bespoke dangers, and formed ominous prognostics, in order s...

It is remarkable, that this enthusiasm spread among our northern people, of sheltering themselves in the continent of America, hath no other foundation, than their present insup...