Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/183

Rh of their faction. God be thanked, her majesty wants not those faithful subjects, who will defend both her person and reputation against the felonious attempts of such impious wretches, and who would serve her in the last moments of her life with as much fidelity and zeal, as if she had twenty sons and daughters to inherit after her. Her times are in the hands of that Almighty Being whose minister she is, and in whom she comfortably puts her trust; who will not shorten the period of her life one moment, for all the impatient curiosity of those people who are daily inquiring, "When will she die?" So long as they keep off their hands, let them wish as much as they think fit: and, when it shall please God to give her the happy change of an earthly for a heavenly crown, let this be written upon her tomb: "That, in compassion to the miseries of Europe, and the sufferings of her own subjects, after a bloody and expensive war, which had lasted twenty years, she concluded a peace: and, that she might transmit the liberties of her people safe to posterity, she disbanded her army: by which glorious achievement, she acquired the hatred of a faction, who were fond of war, that they might plunder their fellow subjects at pleasure; and of an army, that they might do this with impunity." THE