Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/227

N° 40. wise. Most popular commotions we read of in the histories of Greece and Rome, took their rise from unjust quarrels to the nobles; and in the latter, the plebeians encroachments on the patricians, were the first cause of their ruin.

Suppose there be nothing but opinion in the difference of blood; every body knows, that authority is very much founded on opinion. But surely that difference is not wholly imaginary. The advantages of a liberal education, of choosing the best companions to converse with, not being under the necessity of practising little mean tricks by a scanty allowance, the enlarging of thought, and acquiring the knowledge of men and things by travel, the example of ancestors inciting to great and good actions; these are usually some of the opportunities that fall in the way of those, who are born of what we call the better families: and allowing genius to be equal in them and the vulgar, the odds are clearly on their side. Nay, we may observe in some, who, by the appearance of merit, or favour of fortune, have risen to great stations from an obscure birth, that they have still retained some sordid vices of their parentage or education; either insatiable avarice, or ignominious falsehood and corruption.

To say the truth, the great neglect of education in several noble families, whose sons are suffered to pass the most improvable seasons of their youth in vice and idleness, have too much lessened their reputation: but even this misfortune we owe, among all the rest, to that whiggish practice of reviling the universities, under the pretence of their instilling peadantry, narrow principles, and high church doctrines. I would