I have long maintained a distinguished station in our modern days, but I
cannot trace my origin to ancient times, though the learned have
attempted it. After the revolution in 1688, I was chief physician to the
king; at least in my absence he ever complained of sickness. Had I lived
in ancient days, so friendly was I to crowned heads, that Cleopatra
would have got off with a sting; and her cold arm would have felt a
reviving heat. I am rather a friend to sprightliness than to industry; I
have often converted a neutral pronoun into a man of talent: I have
often amused myself with reducing the provident ant to indigence; I
never meet a post horse without giving him a blow; to some animals I am
a friend, and many a puppy has yelped for aid when I have deserted him.
I am a patron of architecture, and can turn every thing into brick and
mortar; and so honest withal, that whenever I can find a pair of
stockings, I ask for their owner. Not even Lancaster has carried
education so far as I have: I adopt always the system of
interrogatories. I have already taught my hat to ask questions of fact;
and my poultry questions of chronology. With my trees I share the
labours of my laundry; they scour my linen; and when I find a rent, ’tis
I who make it entire.
* * * * *
In short, such are my merits, that whatever yours may be, you can never
be more than half as good as I am.
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