“I would as soon rid the country of foxes,”
cries Western. “I think we ought to encourage
the recruiting those numbers which we are every day
losing in the war.—But where is she?
Prithee, Tom, show me.” He then began to
beat about, in the same language and in the same manner
as if he had been beating for a hare; and at last
cried out, “Soho! Puss is not far off.
Here’s her form, upon my soul; I believe I may
cry stole away.” And indeed so he might;
for he had now discovered the place whence the poor
girl had, at the beginning of the fray, stolen away,
upon as many feet as a hare generally uses in travelling.
Sophia now desired her father to return home; saying
she found herself very faint, and apprehended a relapse.
The squire immediately complied with his daughter’s
request (for he was the fondest of parents). He
earnestly endeavoured to prevail with the whole company
to go and sup with him: but Blifil and Thwackum
absolutely refused; the former saying, there were
more reasons than he could then mention, why he must
decline this honour; and the latter declaring (perhaps
rightly) that it was not proper for a person of his
function to be seen at any place in his present condition.
Jones was incapable of refusing the pleasure of being
with his Sophia; so on he marched with Squire Western
and his ladies, the parson bringing up the rear.
This had, indeed, offered to tarry with his brother
Thwackum, professing his regard for the cloth would
not permit him to depart; but Thwackum would not accept
the favour, and, with no great civility, pushed him
after Mr Western.
Thus ended this bloody fray; and thus shall end the
fifth book of this history.
BOOK VI.
CONTAINING ABOUT THREE WEEKS.
Chapter i.
Of love.
In our last book we have been obliged to deal pretty
much with the passion of love; and in our succeeding
book shall be forced to handle this subject still
more largely. It may not therefore in this place
be improper to apply ourselves to the examination
of that modern doctrine, by which certain philosophers,
among many other wonderful discoveries, pretend to
have found out, that there is no such passion in the
human breast.
Whether these philosophers be the same with that surprising
sect, who are honourably mentioned by the late Dr
Swift, as having, by the mere force of genius alone,
without the least assistance of any kind of learning,
or even reading, discovered that profound and invaluable
secret that there is no God; or whether they are not
rather the same with those who some years since very
much alarmed the world, by showing that there were
no such things as virtue or goodness really existing
in human nature, and who deduced our best actions from
pride, I will not here presume to determine.
In reality, I am inclined to suspect, that all these
several finders of truth, are the very identical men
who are by others called the finders of gold.
The method used in both these searches after truth
and after gold, being indeed one and the same, viz.,
the searching, rummaging, and examining into a nasty
place; indeed, in the former instances, into the nastiest
of all places, A BAD MIND.
