Explore "A New Simile, in the Manner of Swift" by Oliver Goldsmith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
LONG had I sought in vain to find / A likeness for the scribbling kind; / The modern scribbling kind, who write / In wit, and sense, and nature's spite: / Till reading, I forget what day on, / A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon, / I think I met with something there, / To suit my purpose to a hair; / But let us not proceed too furious, / First please to turn to god Mercurius; / You'll find him pictur'd at full length / In book the second, page the tenth: / The stress of all my proofs on him I lay, / And now proceed we to our simile.
Imprimis, pray observe his hat, / Wings upon either side-mark that. / Well! what is it from thence we gather? / Why these denote a brain of feather. / A brain of feather! very right, / With wit that's flighty, learning light; / Such as to modern bard's decreed: / A just comparison,-proceed.