Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/193

Rh being made great: and do from my heart pity such as cannot be greater, without being less. Indeed the roll of our nobility is at present very voluminous; but no matter for that. If there were more of them, such is the ductility of my respects, I could, with a smaller quantity of esteem, do honour to them all. I make the same account of nobility of all dates, as I do of books; I value the old, as usually more exact, and genuine, and useful, though commonly unlettered, and often loose in the bindings; and I value the new, because but the notion is obvious, and I leave my reader to pursue it. I was led into this comparison from the curiosa felicitas of those, whose way it is to paste their arms and titles of honour on the reverse of title pages, which shows the affinity of the two. My love to the nobility has made me sometimes seriously lament the great damp which must have fallen on honour and laudable ambition, had the peerage bill succeeded in England; but I had this consolation, that, had the sluice been shut there, the flood of honour had risen the higher here, and overflowed this my native kingdom.

I could here, according to custom, produce, in favour of this uncommon position, many bright authorities; and have now before me above a score of quotations, gathered with infinite labour from St. Chrysostom, by his index; but, to the discouragement of my learning, the Greek types are not ready, and will not be set till the twentieth of next month, when the following editions of this work shall be enriched with learned languages, in great variety. The author of a late state sermon should have waited Rh