Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/207

Rh folks here, whom they call a parliament, will imitate yours in every thing, after the same manner as a monkey does a human creature. If my health were not so bad, although my years be many, I fear I might outlive liberty in England. It has continued longer than in any other monarchy, and must end as all others have done which were established by the Goths, and is now falling in the same manner that the rest have done. It is very natural for every king to desire unlimited power; it is as proper an object to their appetites, as a wench to an abandoned young fellow, or wine to a drunkard. But what puzzles me is, to know how a man of birth, title, and fortune, can find his account in making himself and his posterity slaves. They are paid for it; the court will restore what their luxury has destroyed; I have nothing to object. But, let me suppose a chief minister, from a scanty fortune, almost eaten up with debts, acquiring by all methods a monstrous overgrown estate, why he will still go on to endeavour making his master absolute, and thereby in the power of seizing all his possessions at his pleasure, and hanging or banishing him into the bargain. Therefore, if I were such a minister, I would act like a prudent gamester, and cut, as the sharper calls it, before luck began to change. What if such a minister, when he had got two or three millions, would pretend conviction, seem to dread attempts upon liberty, and bring over all his forces to the country side? As to the lust of absolute power, I despair it can ever be cooled, unless princes had capacity to read the history of the Roman emperors, how many of them were murdered by their own army; and the same may be said of the Ottomans Rh