Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/90

78 In the mean time Ireland is left to trapes in her old draggletailed weeds, by her own children; bribed, by their attention and respect for England, to abandon her to all the dirt and barbarism laid at her door by her ancient and modern enemies; while other countries are brightening up in their story and character by the industry of their writers successively labouring to adorn them. The newest accounts given all over Europe, of the soil, genius, improvement, and customs of Ireland, may be dated 400 years ago. She is still reckoned as savage as she was under the oppression of the Danes, or after the first incursion of the English, who drove her, in spite of her voluntary submission, into wildness. For, after all, if I invite people civilly into my house, and they will not admit me to sit at my own fire, but rather will grow insolent, and force my family to herd in the bare court among my cattle, which I cannot reckon my own, but upon the foot of their will and pleasure; I must either quit my dwelling altogether, or lay about me like a madman till I can repossess it.

On account of this perpetual silence about Ireland, all Europe looks upon her as under a constant fog, the seat of dulness, and the dismal mansion of ignorance and distress. Scarce any people are taken for mere Irish, either in England or on the continent, but the vulgar of the country, and the few unfortunate exiles. The very distinction carries in the face of it a lessening, and strikes the fancy with the ungrateful idea of misery. Besides, the arms of whiggism are extremely long, and reach them to their remotest haunts. There are a thousand instances of this enchantment; and, ing