" With regard to internal matters, "there is a society of men
among us, bred up from youth in the art of proving by words multiplied
for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as
they are paid. In this society all the rest of the people are slaves."
Swift's humour, as has been already intimated, by no means confined
itself to being a mere vehicle of instruction. It luxuriated in a
hundred forms, and on every passing subject. He wrote verses for great
women, and for those who sold oysters and herrings, as well as apples
and oranges. The flying leaves, so common at that time, contained a
great variety of squibs and parodies written by him. Here, for instance
is a travesty of Ambrose Philips' address to Miss Carteret--
"Happiest of the spaniel race
Painter, with thy colours grace,
Draw his forehead large and high,
Draw his blue and humid eye,
Draw his neck, so smooth and round,
Little neck, with ribbons bound,
And the spreading even back,
Soft and sleek, and glossy black,
And the tail that gently twines
Like the tendrils of the vines,
And the silky twisted hair
Shadowing thick the velvet ear,
Velvet ears, which hanging low
O'er the veiny temples flow ..."
He could scarcely stay at an inn without scratching something humorous
on the window pane.
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