Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/290

284 The restoring and destroying the publick, may be asscribedascribed [sic] to persons, who had no hand in either. The author exhorts all gentlemen practitioners to exercise themselves in the translatory, because the existence of the things themselves being visible, and not demanding any proof, there wants nothing to be put upon the publick, but a false author, or a false cause; which is no great presumption upon the credulity of mankind, to whom the secret springs of things are for the most part unknown.

The author proceeds to give some precepts as to the additory: that when one ascribes any thing to a person, which does not belong to him, the lie ought to be calculated not quite contradictory to his known qualities: for example, one would not make the French king present at a protestant conventicle; nor, like queen Elisabeth, restore the overplus of taxes to his subjects. One would not bring in the emperor giving two months pay in advance to his troops; nor the Dutch paying more than their quota. One would not make the same person zealous for a standing army, and publick liberty; nor an atheist support the church; nor a lewd fellow a reformer of manners; nor a hot-headed, crack-brained coxcomb forward for a scheme of moderation. But, if it is absolutely necessary that a person is to have some good adventitious quality given him, the author’s precept is, that it should not be done at first in extremo gradu. For example; they should