the grievances we suffer under present power, then the public good will justify such a revolution; and this I took to have been the case in the Prince of Orange's expedition; although in the consequences it produced some very bad effects, which are likely to stick long enough by us.

I had likewise in those days a mortal antipathy against standing armies in times of peace; because I always took standing armies to be only servants hired by the master of the family, for keeping his own children in slavery. And because I conceived that a prince who could not think himself secure without mercenary troops, must needs have a separate interest from that of his subjects. Although I am not ignorant of those artificial necessities which a corrupted ministry can create, for keeping up forces to support a faction against the public inte

rest.

As to parliaments, I adored the wisdom of that gothic institution, which made them annual, * and

*When King William hesitated about passing the bill for triennial parliaments (for annual seem impracticable and out of the question), and sent down to Sir William Temple, who had retired from public business, to desire he would give him his free opinion on this important measure, Sir William dispatched Swift, then a young man, and who lived in his house, with a 'letter to his Majesty, informing him, that the messenger was fully instructed to give him all possible information on the subject. The king listened to Swift with patience and attention, gave his assent to the bill. As to extending the duration of parliament, in the reign of George I. Dr Johnson has expressed himself with great emphasis, by saying, "That the sudden introduction of twelve new peers at once by Queen Anne, was an act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right, with which some time afterwards, by the instigation of whiggism, the commons, chosen by the people for three years, chose themselves

and

I was confident our liberty could never be placed upon a firm foundation, until that ancient law were restored among us. For, who sees not, that while such assemblies are permitted to have a longer duration, there grows up a commerce of corruption between the ministry and the deputies, wherein they both find their accounts, to the manifest danger of liberty; which traffic would never answer the design nor expence, if parliaments met once a

year.

I ever abominated that scheme of politics, (now about thirty years old) of setting up a monied interest in opposition to the landed. For I conceived, there could not be a truer maxim in our government than this, that the possessors of the soil are the best judges of what is for the advantage of the kingdom. If others had thought the same way, funds of credit and South Sea projects would never have been felt nor heard of.

I could never discover the necessity of suspending any law upon which the liberty of the most innocent persons depended: neither do I think this practice has made the taste of arbitrary power so agreeable, as that we should desire to see it repeated. Every rebellion subdued, and plot discovered, contribute to the firmer establishment of the prince:

for seven."

He should have said at the instigation of some who called themselves whigs. It is in allusion to this sentiment of Swift, relating to parliaments, that Dr Stopford, the learned and amiable Bishop of Cloyne, thus expresses himself in a Latin panegyric on Swift: "Incorruptus inter pessimos mores; magni atque constantis animi; libertatis semper studiosissimus, atque nostri reipublicæ status, à Gothis quondam sapienter instituti, laudator perpetuus, propugnator acerrimus. Cujus tamen formam, ambitu et largitione adco fœdatam, ut vix nunc dignosci possity sæpius indignabundus ploravit."-Dr WARTON.

In the latter case, the knot of conspirators is entirely broken, and they are to begin their work anew under a thousand disadvantages; so that those diligent inquiries into remote and problematical guilt, with a new power of enforcing them by chains and dungeons to every person whose face a minister thinks fit to dislike, are not only opposite to that maxim, which declares it better that ten guilty men should escape, than one innocent suffer; but likewise leave a gate wide open to the whole tribe of informers, the most accursed, and prostitute, and abandoned race, that God ever permitted to plague mankind.

It is true the Romans had a custom of choosing a dictator, during whose administration, the power of other magistrates was suspended; but this was done upon the greatest emergencies; a war near their doors, or some civil dissension; for armies must be governed by arbitrary power. But when the virtue of that commonwealth gave place to luxury and ambition, this very office of dictator became perpetual in the persons of the Cæsars and their successors, the most infamous tyrants that have anywhere appeared in story.

These are some of the sentiments I had relating to public affairs, while I was in the world; what they are at present, is of little importance either to that or myself; neither can I truly say I have any at all, or if I had, I dare not venture to publish them: for, however orthodox they may be while I am now writing, they may become criminal enough to bring me into trouble before midsummer. And indeed I have often wished, for some time past, that a political catechism might be published by authority four times a-year, in order to instruct us how we are to speak, and write, and act, during the current

quarter. I have by experience felt the want of such an instructor: For, intending to make my court to some people on the prevailing side, by advancing certain old whiggish principles, which it seems had been exploded about a month before, I have passed for a disaffected person. I am not ignorant how idle a thing it is, for a man in obscurity to attempt defending his reputation as a writer, while the spirit of faction has so universally possessed the minds of men, that they are not at leisure to attend any thing else. They will just give themselves time to libel and accuse me, but cannot spare a minute to hear my defence. So, in a plot-discovering age, I have often known an innocent man seized and imprisoned, and forced to lie several months in chains, while the ministers were not at leisure to hear his petition, until they had prosecuted and hanged the number they proposed.

All I can reasonably hope for by this letter, is to convince my friends, and others who are pleased to wish me well, that I have neither been so ill a subject, nor so stupid an author, as I have been represented by the virulence of libellers: whose malice has taken the same train in both, by fathering dangerous principles in government upon me, which I never maintained, and insipid productions which I am not capable of writing. For, however I may have been soured by personal ill-treatment, or by melancholy prospects for the public, I am too much a politician to expose my own safety by offensive words. * And if my genius and spirit be sunk

* Swift, in one sentence only of his admirable" Sentiments of a Church of England Man," demolished the slavish and absurd doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. "Many of

by increasing years, I have at least discretion enough left, not to mistake the measure of my own abilities, by attempting subjects where those talents are nenessary, which perhaps I may have lost with my youth.

FROM SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS.

SIR,

Ormond Street, Jan. 14, 1720-21.

HAVING been a little indisposed, I went at Christmas into the country, which prevented me from sooner acknowledging the favour of your letter. As to Waters's case, I was informed of it; and the last time I spoke to Mr Attorney-General † about

*

the clergy," says he, " and other learned men, mistook the object to which passive obedience was due. By the supreme magistrate is properly understood the legislative power, which in all governments must be absolute and unlimited. But the word ma

gistrate seeming to denote a single person, and to express the executive power, it came to pass, that the obedience due to the legislature was, for want of knowing or considering this easy distinction, misapplied to the administration."-Dr WARTON.

*Dr Swift's printer; who was prosecuted for printing "A Proposal for the Universal use of Irish Manufactures," written in 1720. The Dean, in the preceding letter to Pope, pp. 145, 146, says, that the jury which tried him, had been culled with the utmost industry; but that, notwithstanding, they brought him in not guilty that Whitshed, the judge, sent them out nine times, and kept them eleven hours: till, being tired out, they were forced to leave the matter to the mercy of the judge by a special verdict. The Duke of Grafton, lord-lieutenant, soon after, upon mature advice, and permission from England, granted a noli prosequi."-H.

+ Sir Robert Raymond.-B.

VOL. XVI.

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