"When you are to get water for tea, to save firing, and to make more haste, pour it into the tea-kettle from the pot where cabbage or fish have been boiling, which will make it much wholesomer by curing the acid and corroding quality of the tea.
"Directions to cooks.—Never send up the leg of a fowl at supper, while there is a cat or dog in the house that can be accused of running away with it, but if there happen to be neither, you must lay it upon the rats, or a stray greyhound.
"When you roast a long joint of meat, be careful only about the middle, and leave the two extreme parts raw, which will serve another time and also save firing.
"Let a red-hot coal, now and then fall into the dripping pan that the smoke of the dripping may ascend and give the roast meat a high taste.
"If your dinner miscarries in almost every dish, how could you help it? You were teased by the footman coming into the kitchen; and to prove it, take occasion to be angry, and throw a ladleful of broth on one or two of their liveries.
"To Footmen.—In order to learn the secrets of other families, tell them those of your masters; thus you will grow a favourite both at home and abroad, and be regarded as a person of importance.
"Never be seen in the streets with a basket or bundle in your hands, and carry nothing but what you can hide in your pockets, otherwise you will disgrace your calling; to prevent which, always retain a blackguard boy to carry your loads, and if you want farthings, pay him with a good slice of bread or scrap of meat.
"Let a shoe-boy clean your own boots first, then let him clean your master's. Keep him on purpose for that use, and pay him with scraps. When you are sent on an errand, be sure to edge in some business of your own, either to see your sweetheart, or drink a pot of ale with some brother servants, which is so much time clear gained. Take off the largest dishes and set them on with one hand, to show the ladies your strength and vigour, but always do it between two ladies that if the dish happens to slip, the soup or sauce may fall on their clothes, and not daub the floor."
We think that he might have written "directions" for the masters of his day, as by incidental allusions he makes, we find they were not unaccustomed to beat their servants.
Sarcasm was Swift's foible. But we must remember that the age in which he lived was that of Satire. Humour then took that form as in the latter days of Rome. Critical acumen had attained a considerable height, but the state of affairs was not sufficiently settled and tranquil to foster mutual forbearance and amity. Swift, it must be granted, was not so personal as most of his contemporaries, seeking in his wit rather to amuse his friends than to wound his rivals. But his scoffing spirit made him enemies—some of whom taking advantage of certain expressions on church matters in "The Tale of a Tub" prejudiced Queen Anne, and placed an insuperable obstacle in the way of his ambition. He writes of himself.