PRIOR. I shall submit to all you advance _Dean_, provided you quit this Subject, (which I unluckily started) and go to another, which I came to talk about, and is of more Importance; I mean our poor Country, and its present State and Circumstances; when I died, I thought I had left it in a very improving way, and on the mending hand, by my Writings and my constant Labours in its Service, and had I liv'd a little longer, I wou'd have wrote some Tracts, that wou'd have prevented some Distresses, which I hear, are likely to fall heavy on her. SWIFT. Dreams! Whims! and Delusions! If you had wrote your self as blind as _Milton_ did, what Service cou'd you do a Nation that never thinks. You might as well expect to cure the Deaf by talking to them; Idiots by reasoning with them; or to rouse the Dead as the _Romans_ did by bawling and weeping for their miserable Condition. If they had been retrievable by any Writings, I may justly say, they had been retrieved by mine. _----Si Pergama dextra, Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent._ But all such hopes are vain. Preach to Fishes and talk to Wolves like St. _Anthony_ and St. _Francis_, and try what Change it will make in them, and be assur'd, just so much and no more, would your Arguments and Eloquence do, with our heedless Countrymen. I told them of their Danger, and every impending Ruin in Print, Winter after Winter, as regularly as Men wish People a good Year, every first of _January_; for let me tell you _Tom_, repetitions of this Sort, are as necessary in a Nation, that will not readily mind good Advice, as crying Fire! Fire! in a City in Flames, where all are drunk or asleep, and must either rouse and bestir themselves, or Perish. I cannot help boasting a little on this Subject, I have a Title to it; these Hands were almost as useful to the People of _I----d_, as _Moses_'s were to the _Jews_: When I lifted them up, all went well; when I dropt them, all went wrong. However, I must own, that as to the bulk of the Nation, tho' I tried them, and studied them, for half a Century, I ever found that they wou'd not be at the pain of thinking, for half an hour, to secure their ease and happiness for half a Year. But, pray _Tom_, before you speak of the Distresses that menace _I----d_, let me hear what Grounds you have to say, She was, in a tolerable improving way, and on the mending hand (as you call'd it) when you died. I have heard indeed, from the Ghosts of some half-starved Silk-Weavers, and some Manufacturers of _Irish_ Woollen Goods, that died of Hunger and Poverty, that _I----d_ was vastly improv'd, as to Elegance of Taste, in her Gentry, as to eating and drinking: That they understood Musick, infinitely better than their Ancestors; that they drest vastly more agreeably than their stupid Grandmothers, and shew'd more good Sense in the nice choice of their Suits, and the Fancy and richness of their Cloaths, as well as