Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/125

Rh restrictions in the eyes of the people; however, he can be as despotick, when he thinks it necessary, as William the Conqueror; provided he save appearances, by letting old forms subsist in the administration, he can turn them to what use he thinks proper, and has no need of very great dexterity in the management. The people flatter themselves with a notion of being free, because they have an air of being represented, and yet it is that very representation makes them slaves. They have no real liberty left, but that of the press; which would soon grow contemptible in their own eyes, if the minister (against whom it is generally directed) had sense enough to despise it. The barons have no shadow of their old authority, only in the vain formality of entering their protests, by half dozens, against the votes of a vast and a sure majority, that speaks the sense of the minister, while it pretends to speak that of the nation. All this is a riddle, yet every cobler in England can unfold it, to no manner of purpose for himself, or his country. The charm is irresistible; all the subjects are caught in the snare that Clarendon had laid for the sovereign.

In the mean time, the prince, vested by this magick in as much real state and power as the most arbitrary monarch in Europe, has other advantages which none of them can share with him. The interposition of his parliament skreens him from all censure, as well as danger or want. Though he be an errant knave in his dealings with his people, or a notorious trickster, and breaker of publick faith, in regard of his foreign alliances, he is ever absolved by the unthinking world, and the blame thrown entirely on his parliament; which he is still supposed, upon. XIX.