Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/450

438 to learning, or piety, or common morals, would endanger the owner to be cashiered. Although I have no great regard for your trade, from the judgment I make of those who profess it in these kingdoms, yet I cannot but highly esteem those gentlemen of Ireland, who, with all the disadvantages of being exiles and strangers, have been able to distinguish themselves by their valour and conduct in so many parts of Europe, I think, above all other nations; which ought to make the English ashamed of the reproaches they cast on the ignorance, the dulness, and the want of courage, in the Irish natives; those defects, wherever they happen, arising only from the poverty and slavery they suffer from their inhuman neighbours, and the base corrupt spirits of too many of the chief gentry, &c. By such events as these, the very Grecians are grown slavish, ignorant, and superstitious. I do assert, that from several experiments I have made in travelling over both kingdoms, I have found the poor cottagers here, who could speak our language, to have a much better natural taste for good sense, humour, and raillery, than ever I observed among people of the like sort in England. But the millions of oppressions they lie under, the tyranny of their landlords, the ridiculous zeal of their priests, and the general misery of the whole nation, have been enough to damp the best spirits under the sun. I return to your packet.

Two or three poetical friends of mine have read your poems with very good approbation; yet we all agree some corrections may be wanting, and at the same time we are at a loss how to venture on such a work. One gentleman of your own country, name, and