NOTE. THE excitement and even fury which were prevalent in England and France during the years 1719 and 1720 over Law's South Sea schemes afforded Swift an opportunity for the play of his satire by way of criticism on projects which appeared to him to be of the same character. News from France on the Mississippi Scheme which, in 1719, was at the height of its stock-jobbing success, gave glorious accounts of fortunes made in a night, and of thousands who had become rich and were living in unheard of luxury. Schemes were floated on every possible kind of ventures, and so plentiful was the " paper money that nothing was too absurd for speculators. All these schemes, which soon came to nought, went, later, by the name of "Bubbles," and this essay of Swift's touches the matter with his usual satire. The time chosen for the proposal for the establishment of a National Bank in Ireland was not a happy one. It was made in 1720 when the "Bubbles" had burst and found thousands ruined and pauperized. Swift, always an enemy to schemes of any kind, classed that of the bank with the rest of the "Bubbles," and, although the plan itself was a real effort to relieve Ireland, and might have effected its purpose, the terror of the "Bubbles" was sufficient to wreck it. It required very little from Swift to insure its rejection, and rejected it was by the Irish legislature, before whose consideration it was brought. Some doubt seems to obtain as to the authenticity of this "Essay on English Bubbles," which, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, may "be considered as introductory to the other" tracts on the Bank Project. This essay, however, appears in the edition of 1720 of "The Swearer's Bank," and, although it is not included in the "Miscellanies" of 1722, it is accepted by Faulkner in his collected edition of Swift's works. The present text is based on that prefixed to the edition of "The Swearer's Bank," 1720. [T. S.] AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH BUBBLES. BY THOMAS HOPE, ESQ. To the Right Reverend, Right Honourable, and Right Worshipful, and to the Reverend, Honourable, and Worshipful, &c. Company of Stockjobbers; whether Honest or Dishonest, Pious or Impious, Wise or Otherwise, Male or Female, Young or Old, One with another, who have suffered Depredation by the late Bubbles: Greeting. HAVING received the following scheme from Dublin, I 2 give you the earliest notice, how you may retrieve the DECUS ET TUTAMEN,' which you have sacrificed by permits in bubbles. This project is founded on a Parliamentary security, besides, the devil is in it, if it can fail, since a dignitary of the Church is at the head on 't. Therefore you, who have subscribed to the stocking insurance, and are out at the heels, may soon appear tight about the legs. You, who encouraged the hemp manufacture, may leave the halter to rogues, and prevent the odium of felo de se. Medicinal virtues are here to be had without the expense and hazard of a dispensary: You may sleep without dreaming of bottles at your tail, and a looking-glass shall not affright you; and since the glass bubble proved as brittle as its ware, and broke together with itself the hopes of its proprietors, they may make themselves whole by subscribing to our new fund. Here indeed may be made three very grave objections, by incredulous interested priests, ambitious citizens, and scrupulous statesmen. The stocking manufactory gentlemen don't know how swearing can bring 'em to any prob The motto round a crown piece, which was the usual price of permits. [Orig. edit.] 2 The Dean of St. Patrick's. [F.] ability of covering their legs anew, unless it be by the means of a pair of stocks: That the hemp-snared men apprehend, that such an encouragement for oaths can tend to no other advancement, promotion, and exaltation of their persons, than that of the gallows: The late old ordinary, Paul,' having grown grey in the habit of making this accurate observation in every month's Session-Paper, "That swearing had as great a hand in the suspension of every living soul under his cure, as Sabbath-breaking itself;" and that the glass-bubble-men cannot, for their lives, with the best pair of spectacles, that is the only thing left neat and whole, out of all their ware, see how they shall make anything out of this his oath-project, supposing he should even confirm by one its goodness: An oath being, as they say, as brittle as glass, and only made to be broken. But those incredulous priests shall not go without an answer, that will, I am sure, induce them to place a great confidence in the benefit arising from Christians, who damn themselves every hour of the day. For while they speak of the vainness and fickleness of oaths, as an objection against our project, they little consider that this fickleness and vainness is the common practice among all the people of this sublunary world; and that consequently, instead of being an objection against the project, is a concluding argument of the constancy and solidity of their sure gain by it; a never-failing argument, as he tells us, among the brethren of his cloth. The ambitious citizens, who from being plunged deep in the wealthy whirlpool of the South-Sea, are in hopes of rising to such seats of fortune and dignity, as would best suit with their mounting and aspiring hopes, may imagine that this new fund, in the sister nation, may prove a rival to theirs; and, by drawing off a multitude of subscribers, will, if it makes a flood in Ireland, cause an ebb in England. But it may be answered, that, though our author avers, that this fund will vie with the South-Sea, yet it will not clash 1 Paul Lorrain, who was appointed ordinary of Newgate in 1698, compiled numerous confessions and dying speeches of prisoners condemned to be hanged. A letter to Swift, from Pope and Bolingbroke, dated December, 1725, mentions him as "the great historiographer," and Steele, in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," refers to "Lorrain's Saints." Lorrain attended some famous criminals to the scaffold, including Captain Kidd and Jack Sheppard. [T. S.] with it. On the contrary, the subscribers to this must wish the increase of the South-Sea, (so far from being its rival); because the multitude of people raised by it, who were plain-speakers, as they were plain-dealers before, must learn to swear, in order to become their clothes, and to be gentlemen à la mode; while those that are ruined, I mean Job'd by it, will dismiss the patience of their old pattern, swear at their condition, and curse their Maker in their distress; and so the increase of that English fund will be demonstratively an ample augmentation of the Irish one: So far will it be from being rivalled by it, so that each of them may subscribe to a fund they have their own security for augmenting. The scrupulous statesmen (for we know that statesmen are usually very scrupulous) may object against having this project secured by votes in Parliament; by reason, as they may deem it, in their great wisdom, an impious project; and that therefore so illustrious an assembly, as the Irish parliament, ought, by no means, according to the opinion of a Christian statesman, to be concerned in supporting an impious thing in the world. The way that some may take to prove it impious, is, because it will tend highly to the interest of swearing. But this I take to be plain downright sophistry, and playing upon words: If this be called the Swearing project, or the Oath-act, the increase of swearing will be very much for the benefit and interest of swearing, (i.e.) to the subscribers in the fund to be raised by this fruitful Swearing-act, if it should be so called; but not to the swearers themselves, who are to pay for it: So that it will be, according to this distinction, piously indeed an act for a benefit to mankind, from swearing, not impiously, a benefit in swearing: So that I think that argument entirely answered and defeated. Far be it from the Dean to have entered into so unchristian a project, as this had been, so considered. But then these politicians (being generally, as the world knows, mighty tender of conscience) may raise these new doubts, fears, and scruples, viz. that it will however cause the subscribers, to wish, in their minds, for many oaths to fly about, which is a heinous crime, and to lay stratagems to try the patience of men of all sorts, to put them upon the swearing strain, in order to bring grist to their own mill, which is a crime still more enormous; and |