ved a very gracious anfwer; and yet I am fenfible that your chief motive to make fome provision for him was, what became a great and good perfon, your diftinguishing him as a man of learning, and one who deferved encouragement, on account of his great diligence and fuccefs in a moft laborious. and difficult employment *. Since your Excellency hath had an opportunity, fo early in your government, of gratifying your English dependents by a bishoprick, and the best deanery in the kingdom t, I cannot but hope, that the clergy of Ireland will have their fhare in your patronage. There is hardly a gentleman in the na tion who hath not a near alliance with some of that body; and most of them who have fons, ufually breed one of them to the church; although they have been of late years much difcouraged, and dif contented, by feeing strangers to the country al most perpetually taken to the greatest ecclefiafti cal preferments, and too often under governors very different from your Excellency; the choice of perfons was not to be accounted for either to pru dence or juftice. The misfortune of having bifhops perpetually from England, as it muft needs quench the fpirit of emulation among us, to excel in learning and the ftudy of divinity, fo it produceth another great discouragement, that thofe prelates ufually draw after them colonies of fons, nephews, coufins, or old college companions, to whom they beftow the best preferments in their gift; and thus the young men fent into the chuch from the univerfity here, have no better profpect, than to be curates, or fmall country-vicars, for life. It will become fo excellent a governor as you, a little to moderate this great partiality; where A fchoolmaster. t Downe, in, in, as you will act with juftice and reafon, fo you will gain the thanks and prayers of the whole nation, and take away one great caufe of univerfal discontent. For I believe your Excellency will agree, that there is not another kingdom in Europe, where the natives (even thofe defcended from the conquerors) have been treated, as if they were al moft unqualified for any employment, either in church or state. Your Excellency, when I had the honour to at tend you, was pleased to let me name fome clergymen, who are generally understood by their bre thren to be the most distinguished for their learn ing and piety. I remember the perfons were, Dr. Delany, Dr. Ward of the North, Mr. Ecklin, Mr. Synge of Dublin, and Mr. Corbet. They were named by me without any regard to friendship, having little commerce with most of them, but only to the universal character they bear. This was the method I always took with my Lord Oxford, at his own command; who was pleased to believe I would not be fwayed by any private affections, and confeffed I never deceived him; for I always dealt openly, when I offered any thing in behalf of a friend, which was but feldom: because, in that cafe, I generally made ufe of the common method at court, to folicit by another. I fhall fay nothing of the young men among the clergy; of whom the three hopfulleft are faid to be, Mr. Stopford, Mr. King, and Mr Dobbs, all fellows of the college*; of whom I am only ac quainted with the first. But these are not likely to be great expectors under your Excellency's adminiftration, according to the ufual period of governors here. If I have dealt honeftly in representing fuch per fons among the clergy as are generally allowed to * The university of Dublin. have the most merit, I think I have done you a fervice, and I am fure I have made you a great compliment, by diftinguishing you from moft great men I have known these thirty years paft; whom I have always observed to act, as if they never received a true character, nor had any value for the beft, and confequently difpenfed their favours without the leaft regard to abilities or virtue. And this defect I have often found among those from whom I leaft expected it. That your Excellency may long live a bleffing and ornament to your country, by purfuing, as you have hitherto done, the steps of honour and virtue, is the most earnest wish and prayer of, My LORD, Your Excellency's moft obedient, JONATH. SWIFT. LETTER CXI. Dr. SWIFT to Dr. SHERIDAN. Quilca, Sept. 11. 1725. IF you are indeed a difcarded courtier, you have reafon to complain, but none at all to wonder. You are too young for many experiences to fall in your way, yet you have read enough to make you know the nature of man. It is safer for a man's intereft to blafpheme God, than to be of a party out of power, or even to be thought fo. And fince the last was the cafe, how could you imagine that all mouths would not be open, when you were received, and in fome manner preferred by the government, though in a poor way? I tell you, there is hardly It a Whig in Ireland, who would allow a potatoe and butter-milk to a reputed Tory Neither is there any thing in your countrymen upon this article, more than what is common in all other nations, only quoad magis et mnus. Too much advertency is not your talent, or elfe you had fled from that text, as from a rock *. For, as Don Quixote faid to Sancho, what business had you to speak of a halter, in a family where one of it was hanged? And your innocence is a protection that wife men are ashamed to rely on, further than with God. is indeed against common fenfe, to think, that you fhould chufe fuch a time, when you had received a favour from the Lord Lieutenant, and had rea fon to expect more, to discover your difloyalty in the pulpit. But what will that avail? Therefore fit down and be quiet, and mind your bufinefs as you fhould do, and contract your friendships, and expect no more from man than fuch an animal is capable of; and you will every day find my defcription of Yahoos more resembling. You fhould think and deal with every man as a villain, without calling him fo, or flying from him, or valuing him lefs. This is an old true leffon. You believe every one will acquit you of any regard to temporal intereft; and how came you to claim an exception from all mankind? I believe you value your temporal intereft as much as any body, but you have not the arts of purfuing it You are miftaken. Domestic evils are no more within a man than others; and he who cannot bear up against the first, will fink under the fecond; and, in my confcience, I believe this is your cafe; for being of a weak corr. ftitution, in an employment precarious and tirefome, loaden with children, cum uxore neque leni Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; on which Dr. Sheridan preached at his parish church on the 1st of Auguft. See a vindication of his Excellency John Lord Carteret, vol. 4. p. 72. n eque neque commoda, a man of intent and abstracted thinking, inflaved by mathematics and complaint of the world, this new weight of party-malice hath ftruck you down, like a feather on a horse's back, already loaden as far as he is able to bear. You ought to change the apostle's expreffion, and fay, I will ftrive to learn in whatever ftate, &c. I will bear none of your visions; you fhall live at Quilca but three fortnights and a month in the year; perhaps not fo much. You fhall make no entertainments but what are neceffary to your interefts; for your true friends would rather see you over a piece of mutton and a bottle once a quarter. You fhall be merry at the expence of others; you fhall take care of your health, and go early to bed, and not read late at night; and laugh with all men, without trusting any; and then a fig for the contrivers of your ruin, who now have no further thoughts than to ftop your progrefs, which perhaps they may not compafs, unless I am deceived more than is ufual. All this you will do, fi mihi credis, and not dream of printing your fermon, which is a project abounding with objections unanswerable, and with which I could fill this letter. You fay nothing of having preached before the Lord Lieutenant, nor whether he is altered towards you; for you fpeak nothing but generals. You think all the world has now nothing to do, but to pull Mr. Sheridan down; whereas it is nothing but a flap in your turn, and away. Lord Oxford faid once to me on an occafion, Thefe fools, because they hear a noife about their ears of their own making, think the whole world is full of it. When I come to town, we will change all this fcene, and act like men of the world. Grow rich, and you will have no enemies. Go fometimes to the caftle; keep faft Mr. Tickell and Balaguer *; *Private fecretary to his Excellency the Lord Carteret, LordLieutenant of Ireland. Dub. edit. VOL. X. frequent |