Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/65

Rh of judgment, said, "There was one thing he would be bold to affirm, That the day of judgment was nearer now, than ever it was since the beginning of the world." So the war is certainly nearer an end to day than it was yesterday, though it does not end these twenty years.

Ibid. "Such fickle, inconstant, irresolute creatures are we in the midst of our bravest resolutions. When we set out, we seem to look at what we are aiming at through that end of the perspective that magnifies the object, and it brings it nearer to us; but, when we are got some way, before we are aware we turn the glass, and, looking through the little end, what we are pursuing seems to be at a vast distance, and dwindled almost into nothing." This is strange reasoning. Where does his instrumentmaker live? We may have the same constancy, the same desire to pursue a thing, and yet not the same abilities. For example, in hunting, many accidents happen; you grow weary, your horse falls lame, or in leaping a hedge throws you: you have the same reason to pursue the game, but not the same ability.

P. 67. "Their zeal perhaps flames at first; but it is the flame of straw, it has not strength to last. When the multitude once begin to be weary and indifferent, how easily are they then seduced into false measures! how readily do they give inro suspicions against those who would encourage them to persevere, while they are fond of others, who, to serve themselves, fall in with their complaints, but at the bottom mean nothing but their own interest!" How base and false soever this reproach be, I have set it almost at length, that I Rh