Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/509

Rh "Because I cannot be a great lord, I would acquire what is a kind of subsidium; I would endeavour that my betters should seek me, by the merit of something distinguishable, instead of my seeking them." How successful he was in attaining his end, has been already shown. We have seen in what a high point of light he stood, during the latter years of queen Anne; and what homage was paid him by all the great of both sexes, when he was only a petty vicar of Laracor. But this was nothing in comparison of the honours that afterward awaited him, when a whole kingdom looked up to him as their first and greatest man; when the humble title of dean, dignified by his wearing it, with a The before it, conferred by the general voice, made all other titles sink degraded: when at a meeting of all the nobles, with the viceroy on his throne, earls, viscounts, barons, archbishops, bishops, and judges, shrunk into pigmies, like the assembly described by Milton in the Pandemonium, upon the entrance of The dean; all eyes being turned on him alone, all voices employed in his praise: and when that kingdom itself, by nature great, but rendered little by oppression, was scarce heard of in Europe, but as the place of his nativity and residence. What titles, what dignities conferred on him by the monarchs of the earth, could have raised him to such a height, as that true nobility of soul, bestowed on him by the King of kings?

To suppose that he was not conscious of his preeminence over others, or that he was not pleased with