"This indeed is more than I can justly expect from a quill worn to the pith in the service of the State, in pros and cons upon Popish Plots, and Meal Tubs, and Exclusion Bills, and Passive Obedience, and Addresses of Lives and Fortunes; and Prerogative, and Property, and Liberty of Conscience, and Letters to a Friend: from an understanding and a conscience, threadbare and ragged with perpetual turning; from a head broken in a hundred places by the malignants of the opposite factions, and from a body spent with poxes ill cured, by trusting to bawds and surgeons, who (as it afterwards appeared) were professed enemies to me and the Government, and revenged their party’s quarrel upon my nose and shins."
— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for John Nutt
Date
May 10, 1704
Metaphor
"This indeed is more than I can justly expect from a quill worn to the pith in the service of the State, in pros and cons upon Popish Plots, and Meal Tubs, and Exclusion Bills, and Passive Obedience, and Addresses of Lives and Fortunes; and Prerogative, and Property, and Liberty of Conscience, and Letters to a Friend: from an understanding and a conscience, threadbare and ragged with perpetual turning; from a head broken in a hundred places by the malignants of the opposite factions, and from a body spent with poxes ill cured, by trusting to bawds and surgeons, who (as it afterwards appeared) were professed enemies to me and the Government, and revenged their party’s quarrel upon my nose and shins."
Metaphor in Context
These notices may serve to give the learned reader an idea as well as a taste of what the whole work is likely to produce, wherein I have now altogether circumscribed my thoughts and my studies; and if I can bring it to a perfection before I die, shall reckon I have well employed the poor remains of an unfortunate life. This indeed is more than I can justly expect from a quill worn to the pith in the service of the State, in pros and cons upon Popish Plots, and Meal Tubs, and Exclusion Bills, and Passive Obedience, and Addresses of Lives and Fortunes; and Prerogative, and Property, and Liberty of Conscience, and Letters to a Friend: from an understanding and a conscience, threadbare and ragged with perpetual turning; from a head broken in a hundred places by the malignants of the opposite factions, and from a body spent with poxes ill cured, by trusting to bawds and surgeons, who (as it afterwards appeared) were professed enemies to me and the Government, and revenged their party’s quarrel upon my nose and shins. Fourscore and eleven pamphlets have I written under three reigns, and for the service of six-and-thirty factions. But finding the State has no farther occasion for me and my ink, I retire willingly to draw it out into speculations more becoming a philosopher, having, to my unspeakable comfort, passed a long life with a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men.
(pp. 32-3 in OUP ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
43 entries in the ESTC (1704, 1705, 1710, 1711, 1724, 1726, 1727, 1733, 1734, 1739, 1741, 1742, 1743, 1747, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1753, 1754, 1756, 1760, 1762, 1766, 1768, 1769, 1771, 1772, 1776, 1781, 1784, 1798).
Reading Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, eds. Angus Ross and David Woolley. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Some text drawn from ebooks@Adelaide.
Note, the textual history is complicated. First published May 10, 1704. The second edition of 1704 and the fifth of 1710 include new material. Ross and Woolley's text is an eclectic one, based on the three authoritative editions.
See A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind. To Which Is Added, an Account of a Battel Between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James's Library, 2nd edition, corrected (London: Printed for John Nutt, 1704). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Reading Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, eds. Angus Ross and David Woolley. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Some text drawn from ebooks@Adelaide.
Note, the textual history is complicated. First published May 10, 1704. The second edition of 1704 and the fifth of 1710 include new material. Ross and Woolley's text is an eclectic one, based on the three authoritative editions.
See A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind. To Which Is Added, an Account of a Battel Between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James's Library, 2nd edition, corrected (London: Printed for John Nutt, 1704). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
09/11/2013
