—— in all the fabrick
You could not see one stone or a brick.
Who deals in destiny's dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells.
Those wholesale critics that in coffee-
Houses cry down all philosophy."
Mrs. Pilkington tells us that Swift took down a "Hudibras" one day, and ordered her to examine him in the book, when, to her great surprise, she found he remembered "every line, from beginning to end of it."[292] Mrs. Pilkington is a lady whose word is to be taken cum multis granis; nor is it very likely she should ever have heard the Dean repeat a whole volume through; but if Swift knew any author entire, Butler is likely to have been the man. Butler had the same politics, the same love of learning, the same wit, the same apparent contempt of mankind, the same charity underneath it, and the same impatient wish to see them wiser. His style of writing is evidently the origin of Swift's. If the reader is not yet acquainted with his 'Remains,' the following sample or two will give him a desire to be so:—
"The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance;
As blind men use to bear their noses higher,