Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/41

 forty, the period which the Italians prescribe for being wise, in order to be rich at fifty — Senes ut in otia tuta recedant. I have known something of courts and ministers longer than you, who knew them so many thousand times better; but I do not remember to have ever heard of, or seen, one great genius, who had long success in the ministry: and recollecting a great many, in my memory and acquaintance, those who had the smoothest time, were, at best, men of middling degree in understanding. But, if I were to frame a romance of a great minister's life, he should begin it as Aristippus has done; then be sent into exile, and employ his leisure in writing the memoirs of his own administration; then be recalled, invited to resume his share of power, act as far as was decent; at last, retire to the country, and be a pattern of hospitality, politeness, wisdom, and virtue. Have you not observed, that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest stations, in the court, the church, and the law? It must be so: for, Providence, which designed the world should be governed by many heads, made it a business within the reach of common understandings; while one great genius is hardly found among ten millions. Did you never observe one of your clerks cutting his paper with a blunt ivory knife? did you ever know the knife to fail going the true way? whereas, if he had used a razor, or a penknife, he had odds against him of spoiling a whole sheet. I have twenty times compared the motion of that ivory implement, to those talents that thrive best at court. Think upon lord Bacon, Williams, Strafford, Laud, Clarendon, Shaftesbury, the last duke of ham;