Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/51

Rh him, to surrender themselves to his arguments for virtue and good sense.

It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished, or given a very great check to; how much countenance they have added to virtue and religion; how many people they have rendered happy, by showing them it was their own fault if they were not so; and, lastly, how entirely they have convinced our fops and young fellows of the value and advantages of learning.

He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of pedants and fools, and discovered the true method of making it amiable and lovely to all mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a most welcome guest at tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished and caressed by the merchants on the Change; accordingly, there is not a lady at court, nor a banker in Lombard street, who is not verily persuaded, that captain Steele is the greatest scholar and best casuist of any man in England.

Lastly, his writings have set all our wits and men of letters upon a new way of thinking, of which they had little or no notion before; and though we cannot yet say that any of them have come up to the beauties of the original, I think we may venture to affirm, that every one of them writes and thinks much more justly than they did some time since.

The vast variety of subjects which he has treated of in so different a manner, and yet all so perfectly well, made the world believe that it was impossible they should all come from the same hand, This set

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