Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/157

N° 31. longer a man of wit; his very poems have contracted a stupidity, many years after they were printed.

Having lately ventured upon a metaphorical genealogy of Merit, I thought it would be proper to add another of Party, or rather of Faction (to avoid mistake) not telling the reader whether it be my own or a quotation, till I know how it is approved. But whether I read, or dreamed it, the fable is as follows:

"LIBERTY, the daughter of Oppression, after having brought forth several fair children, as Riches, Arts, Learning, Trade, and many others, was at last delivered of her youngest daughter, called Faction; whom Juno, doing the office of the midwife, distorted in his birth out of envy to the mother, whence it derived its peevishness and sickly constitution. However, as it is often the nature of parents to grow most fond of their youngest and disagreeablest children, so it happened with Liberty; who doated on this daughter to such a degree, that by her good will she would never suffer the girl to be out of her sight. As miss Faction grew up, she became so termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter gave her warning to be gone; and her mother, rather than forsake her, took the whole family down to earth. She landed first in Greece; was expelled by degrees through all the cities by her daughter's ill conduct; fled afterward to Italy, and being banished Rh