Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/35

Rh ; particularly that of the saints' intercession; and living in an age overrun with superstition, he went so far into the other extreme, as to be censured for an atheist. The day before his death, a monk relating a terrible dream, which seemed to forebode him some misfortune, the king being told the matter, turned it into a jest; said, The man was a monk, and dreamt like a monk, for lucre sake; and therefore commanded Fitzhamon to give him a hundred shillings, that he might not complain he had dreamt to no purpose.

His vices appear to have been rather derived from the temper of his body, than any original depravity of his mind; for, being of a sanguine complexion, wholly bent upon his pleasures, and prodigal in his nature, he became engaged in great expenses. To supply these, the people were perpetually oppressed with illegal taxes and exactions; but that sort of avarice which arises from prodigality and vice, as it is always needy, so it is much more ravenous and violent than the other; which put the king and his evil instruments (among whom Ralph, bishop of Durham, is of special infamy) upon those pernicious methods of gratifying his extravagances by all manner of oppression; whereof some are already mentioned, and others are too foul to relate. He is generally taxed by writers for discovering a contempt of religion in his common discourse and behaviour; which I take to have risen from the same fountain, being a point of art, and a known expedient for men who cannot quit their immoralities, at least to banish all reflection that may disturb them in the enjoyment, which must be done either by not thinking of religion at all; or, if it will obtrude, by putting it out of countenance. Yet