Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/159

N° 31. If I understand this fable of Faction right, it ought to be applied to those who set themselves up against the true interest and constitution of their country; which I wish the undertakers for the late ministry would please to take notice of, or tell us by what figure of speech they pretend to call so great and unforced a majority, with the queen at their head, by the name of the faction; which is not unlike the phrase of the nonjurors, who, dignifying one or two deprived bishops, and half a score clergymen of the same stamp, with the title of the church of England, exclude all the rest as schismaticks; of like the presbyterians laying the same accusation, with equal justice, against the established religion.

And here it may he worth inquiring, what are the true characteristicks of a faction; or how it is to be distinguished from that great body of the people who are friends to the constitution? The heads of a faction are usually a set of upstarts, or men ruined in their fortunes, whom some great change in a government did at first out of their obscurity produce upon the stage. They associate themselves with those who dislike the old establishment, religious and civil. They are full of new schemes in politicks and divinity; they have an incurable hatred against the old nobility, and strengthen their party by dependants raised from the lowest of the people. They have several ways of working themselves into power; but they are sure to be called, when a corrupt administration wants to be supported, against those who are endeavouring at a reformation; and they firmly observe that celebrated maxim, of preserving power by the same arts by which it is attained. They act with the spirit of those who believe their time is Rh