Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/357

Rh than these, if they should have a mind to it. Observe how naturally power and dominion are attended with fear and precaution. When I am in the herd, I have as little of it about me as any body; but now that I am in the midst of my own dominions, I think of nothing but preserving them, and grow fearful lest a certain great man should take a fancy to them, and transport them into Norfolk, to place them as an island in one of his new-made fish ponds. Or, if you take this for too proud a thought, I will only suppose it to be hung out under a great bow window.

In either case I must confess to you, that I do not like it. In the first place, I am not sure his newmade ground may hold good: in the latter case, I have some reason to doubt the foundations of his house are not so solid as he may imagine. Now, therefore, I am not so much in the wrong as you may conceive, to desire that my territory may remain where it is: for, though I know you could urge many arguments to show the advantages I might reap by being so near him, yet I hold it as a maxim, that he who is contented with what he has, ought not to risk that, even though he should have a chance to augment it in any proportion. I learned this from our friend Erasmus; and the corrupt notions, that money is power, and therefore every man ought to get as much as he can, in order to create more power to himself, have no weight with me.

But now, to begin my letter to you, I have ceived