The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1Swift, Jonathan
Religion
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1
Swift, Jonathan
Christianity; Church of England; Clergy; Religion
[Footnote 5: In "The Intelligencer," No. v., this paragraph reads as
follows: "In some following Paper I will give the reader a short history
of two Clergymen in England, the characters of each, and the progress of
their fortunes in the world. By which the force of worldly discretion,
and the bad consequences from the want of that virtue, will strongly
appear." In No. vii. the subject is continued as in the next paragraph.
[T.S.]]
Corusodes, an Oxford student, and a farmer's son, was never absent from
prayers or lecture, nor once out of his college, after Tom had tolled.
He spent every day ten hours in his closet, in reading his courses,
dozing, clipping papers, or darning his stockings; which last he
performed to admiration. He could be soberly drunk at the expense of
others, with college ale, and at those seasons was always most devout.
He wore the same gown five years without draggling or tearing. He never
once looked into a playbook or a poem. He read Virgil and Ramus in the
same cadence, but with a very different taste. He never understood a
jest, or had the least conception of wit.
For one saying he stands in renown to this day. Being with some other
students over a pot of ale, one of the company said so many pleasant
things, that the rest were much diverted, only Corusodes was silent and
unmoved. When they parted, he called this merry companion aside, and
said, "Sir, I perceive by your often speaking, and your friends
laughing, that you spoke many jests; and you could not but observe my
silence: But sir, this is my humour, I never make a jest myself, nor
ever laugh at another man's."
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