Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/264

256 to the speaker: whereas, what we call the Irish brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies. Neither does it avail whether the censure be reasonable or not, since the fact is always so. And, what is yet worse, it is too well known, that the bad consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the least liable to such reproaches, farther than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education has been chiefly in that kingdom.

I have heard many gentlemen among us talk much of the great convenience to those who live in the country, that they should speak Irish. It may possibly be so: but, I think, they should be such who never intend to visit England, upon pain of being ridiculous; for I do not remember to have heard of any one man that spoke Irish, who had not the accent upon his tongue easily discernible to any English ear.

But I have wandered a little from my subject, which was only to propose a wish, that these execrable denominations were a little better suited to an English mouth, if it were only for the sake of the English lawyers; who, in trials upon appeals to the House of Lords, find so much difficulty in repeating the names, that if the plaintiff or defendant were by, they would never be able to discover which were their own lands. But, beside this, I would desire, not only that the appellations of what they call town-lands were changed, but likewise of larger districts, and several towns, and some counties; and particularly the seats