Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/203

N° 37. one or two places of consequence, without consulting her ephori, after they had fixed them for others, and concluded as usual, that all their business was to signify their pleasure to her majesty. But, although the persons the queen had chosen, were such, as no objection could well be raised against upon the score of party, yet the oligarchy took the alarm; their sovereign authority was, it seems, called in question; they grew into anger and discontent, as if their undoubted rights were violated. All former obligations to their sovereign now became cancelled; and they put themselves upon the foot of the people, who are hardly used after the most eminent services.

I believe all men, who know any thing in politicks, will agree, that a prince thus treated by those he has most confided in, and perpetually loaded with his favours, ought to extricate himself as soon as possible; and is then only blameable in his choice of time, when he defers one minute after it is in his power; because, from the monstrous encroachments of exorbitant avarice and ambition, he cannot tell how long it may continue to be so. And it will be found, upon inquiring into history, that most of those princes, who have been ruined by favourites, have owed their misfortune to the neglect of earlier remedies; deferring to struggle, until they were quite sunk.

The whigs are every day cursing the ungovernable rage, the haughty pride, and insatiable covetousness of a certain person, as the cause of their fall; and are apt to tell their thoughts, that one single removal might have set all things right. But the interests of that single person, were found, upon experience, so Rh