Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/274

 among them, like his own Gulliver amid a circle of Lilliputians. For some time a profound silence ensued. When lord Carteret, who had listened with great composure to the whole speech, made this fine reply, in a line of Virgil's:

Res duræ, & regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri.

The whole assembly was struck with the beauty of this quotation, and the levee broke up in good humour. Some extolling the magnanimity of Swift to the skies, and all delighted with the ingenuity of the lord lieutenant's answer.

When the patent was withdrawn, and of course all apprehensions about the coin were over, Swift retired to Quilca, a house of Dr. Sheridan's, in a desolate part of the country, where he passed some months in finishing and preparing his Gulliver's Travels for the press. Early in the next year 1726, he set out for England, after an absence from that country of near twelve years. He was received with all demonstrations of joy by his old friends, whose attachment to this incomparable man, seemed rather increased than diminished by absence. — They all expressed the warmest wishes that he would quit Ireland, and settle among them, and several plans were proposed to accomplish the point. Nor was Swift less desirous of returning to his own country, for he always considered it as such, being the country of his forefathers, though he happened, as he himself expresses it, to be dropped in Ireland: nor is it prising