n; and
after several altercations, the counsellor asked him, "If the devil was to
die, whether a _parson_ might not be found, who, for money, would preach
his funeral?" "Yes," said Swift, "I would gladly be the man, and I would
then give the _devil_ his due, as I have this day done his _children_."

Swift disliked nothing so much as being troubled with applications from
authors to correct their works. A poor poet having written a very
indifferent tragedy, got himself introduced to the dean in order to have
his opinion of it; and in about a fortnight after, called at the deanery.
Swift returned the play, carefully folded up, telling him he had read it,
and taken some pains with it, and he believed the author would not find
above half the number of faults that it had when it came into his hands.
The poor author, after a thousand acknowledgments, retired in company with
the gentleman who had introduced him, and was so impatient to see the
corrections, that he stopped under the first gateway they came to, when to
his utter astonishment and confusion, he saw that the dean had taken the
pains to blot out every second line throughout the whole play, so carefully
as to render them quite illegible.

Lady Carteret, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, said to Swift one day, "The air
of Ireland is excellent and healthy." "For God's sake, madam," said Swift,
falling down before her, "don't say so in England, for if you do they will
tax it."

Dr Savage, who died in 1747, travelled in his younger days, with the Earl
of Salisbury, to whom he was indebted for a considerable living in
Hertfordshire. One day at the levee, the King (George I.) asked him how
long he had resided at Rome with Lord Salisbury. Upon his answering him how
long,--"Why," said the king, "you staid there long enough; how is it you
did not convert the pope?"--"Because, sir," replied the doctor, "I had
nothing better to offer him."

Sheridan.--This distinguished wit, upon being asked by a young member of
parliament how he first succeeded in establishing his fame as an orator,
replied, "Why, sir, it was easily effected. After I had been in St.
Stephen's Chapel a few days, I found that four-fifths of the house were
composed of country squires, and great fools; my first effort, therefore,
was by a lively sally, or an ironical remark, to make them laugh; that
laugh effaced from their stupid pates the recollection of what had been
urged in opposition to my view of the s