al source.

This society carefully abstained from their frolics before the stupid
and ignorant, knowing that on no occasion ought a wise man to guard his
words and actions more than when in the company of fools.

How long the Scriblerus Club lasted is not exactly ascertained, or
whether it existed during the intimacy between Swift and Addison,
previous to the Doctor's connection with the Tory ministry.

THE UPSTART.

There was one character which, through life, always kindled Swift's
indignation, _the haughty, presuming, tyrannizing upstart_! A person of
this description chanced to reside in the parish of Laracor. Swift
omitted no opportunity of humbling his pride; but, as he was as ignorant
as insolent, he was obliged to accommodate the coarseness of the lash to
the callosity of the back. The following lines have been found written
by Swift upon this man:--

The rascal! that's too mild a name;
Does he forget from whence he came;
Has he forgot from whence he sprung;
A mushroom in a bed of dung;
A maggot in a cake of fat,
The offspring of a beggar's brat.
As eels delight to creep in mud,
To eels we may compare his blood;
His blood in mud delights to run;
Witness his lazy, lousy son!
Puff'd up with pride and insolence,
Without a grain of common sense,
See with what consequence he stalks,
With what pomposity he talks;
See how the gaping crowd admire
The stupid blockhead and the liar.
How long shall vice triumphant reign?
How long shall mortals bend to gain?
How long shall virtue hide her face,
And leave her votaries in disgrace?
----Let indignation fire my strains,
Another villain yet remains--
Let purse-proud C----n next approach,
With what an air he mounts his coach!
A cart would best become the knave,
A dirty parasite and slave;
His heart in poison deeply dipt,
His tongue with oily accents tipt,
A smile still ready at command,
The pliant bow, the forehead bland----

MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK.

This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that
neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it
was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs: but now in vain
does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that
withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk. It is now at best but the
reverse of what it was, a tree turned upsid