The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. - Volume 07: Historical and Political Tracts-IrishSwift, Jonathan
General
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. - Volume 07: Historical and Political Tracts-Irish
Swift, Jonathan
Ireland -- Politics and government -- 18th century
I must confess, that the author of your letter to me hath carried this
last qualification to a greater height than any of his fellows: but he
hath, in my opinion, failed a little in point of politeness from the
original which he affects to imitate. If I should say to a prime
minister, "Sir, you have sufficiently provided that Dunkirk should be
absolutely demolished and never repaired; you took the best advantages
of a long and general peace to discharge the immense debts of the
nation; you did wonders with the fleet; you made the Spaniards submit to
our quiet possession of Gibraltar and Portmahon; you never enriched
yourself and family at the expense of the public."--Such is the style of
your supposed letter, which however, if I am well informed, by no means
comes up to the refinements of a fishwife in Billingsgate. "You never
had a bastard by Tom the waterman; you never stole a silver tankard; you
were never whipped at the cart's tail."
In the title of your letter, it is said to be "occasioned by the late
invectives on the King, her Majesty, and all the Royal Family:" and the
whole contents of the paper (stripped from your eloquence) goes on upon
a supposition affectedly serious, that their Majesties, and the whole
Royal Family, have been lately bitterly and publicly inveighed against
in the most enormous and treasonable manner. Now, being a man, as you
well know, altogether out of business, I do sometimes lose an hour in
reading a few of those controversial papers upon politics, which have
succeeded for some years past to the polemical tracts between Whig and
Tory: and in this kind of reading (if it may deserve to be so called)
although I have been often but little edified, or entertained, yet hath
it given me occasion to make some observations. First, I have observed,
that however men may sincerely agree in all the branches of the Low
Church principle, in a tenderness for dissenters of every kind, in a
perfect abhorrence of Popery and the Pretender, and in the most firm
adherence to the Protestant succession in the royal house of Hanover;
yet plenty of matter may arise to kindle their animosities against each
other from the various infirmities, follies, and vices inherent in
mankind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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