Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/302

294 has been a continued link of ignorance, blunders, and mistakes in every article, beside that of enriching; and aggrrandizing himself.

For these reasons the faults of men, who are most trusted in publick business, are, of all others, the most difficult to be defended. A man may be persuaded into a wrong opinion, wherein he has small concern: but no oratory can have the power over a sober man, against the conviction of his own senses: and therefore, as I take it, the money thrown away on such advocates, might be more prudently spared, and kept in such a minister's own pocket, than lavished in hiring a corporation of pamphleteers to defend his conduct, and prove a kingdom to be flourishing in trade and wealth, which every particular subject (except those few already excepted) can lawfully swear, and by dear experience knows, to be a falsehood.

Give me leave, noble sir, in the way of argument, to suppose this to be your case; could you in good conscience, or moral justice, chide your paper-advocates for their ill success in persuading the world against manifest demonstration? Their miscarriage is owing, alas! to want of matter. Should we allow them to be masters of wit, raillery, or learning, yet the subject would not admit them to exercise their talents; and consequently, they can have no recourse but to impudence, lying, and scurrility.

I must confess, that the author of your letter to me has carried this last qualification to a greater height than any of his fellows: but he has, in my opinion, failed a little in point of politeness from the original which he affects to imitate. If I should say