Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/63

Rh company to dinner with them. At that sumptuous table which his grace once a week provides for himself and them, the good doctor never considers what we suffer at home, or how long we shall be able to find them money to support their magnificence. I should think the queen and ministry, next under God, the best judges what peace we ought to make. If by our impatience he meant the army, it was needless and absurd; if he meant our impatience here at home, being so far removed from the scene, and in quite another view, he can be no judge of that.

P. 64. "One would think a people, who, by such a train of wonderful successes, were now brought to the very banks of Jordan, could not be so fearful as to stop there, or doubt with themselves whether or no they should try to pass the river [quere, Senset or Scheldt?], and get possession of the land which God had promised them; that they could, with their own eyes, take a view of it [applied to Picardy ], and behold it was exceeding good, &c." Our case and the Israelites is very different. What they conquered, they got for themselves; we take a view of the land, as they did, and "behold it to be exceeding good," but good for others. If Joshua had spent many years in conquering the Amorites (with the loss of infinite blood and treasure), and then delivered the land over to the Gibeonites, the Israelites might have had good reason to murmur; and that has been our case.

Ibid. "It seems incredible, that men should for many years together struggle with the greatest difficulties, and successfully go through innumerable dangers, in pursuit of a noble end, an end . XVIII.