Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/103

N° 24. constraint upon human nature; and under a wise steady prince, will certainly decline of themselves, settling like the sea after a storm; and then the true bent and genius of the people will appear. Ancient and modern story are full of instances to illustrate what I say.

In our own island we had a great example of a long madness in the people, kept up by a thousand artifices, like intoxicating medicines, until the constitution was destroyed; yet the malignity being spent, and the humour exhausted that served to foment it, before the usurpers could fix upon a new scheme, the people suddenly recovered, and peaceably restored the old constitution.

From what I have offered, it will be easy to decide, whether this late change in the disposition of the people was a new madness, or a recovery from an old one. Neither do I see how it can be proved, that such a change had, in any circumstance, the least symptoms of madness, whether my description of it be right or not. It is agreed, that the truest way of judging the disposition of the people in the choice of their representatives, is, by computing the county elections; and in these it is manifest, that five in six are entirely for the present measures; although the court was so far from interposing its credit, that there was no change in the admiralty, not above one or two in the lieutenancy, nor any other methods used to influence elections. The free, unextorted addresses, sent some time before from every part of the kingdom, plainly showed, what sort of bent the people had taken, and from what motives. The election of members for this great city, carried, contrary to all conjecture, against the