Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/285

Rh that has been published these twenty years. What needy writer would not solicit to work under such masters, who will pay us beforehand, take off as much of our ware as we please, at our own rates, and trouble not themselves to examine, either before or after they have bought it, whether it be staple, or not.

But, in order to illustrate the implicit munificence of these noble patrons, I cannot take a more effectual method than by examining the production itself; by which we shall easily find that it was never intended, farther than from the noise, the bulk, and the title of Crisis, to do any service to the factious cause. The entire piece consists of a title page, a dedication to the clergy, a preface, an extract from certain acts of parliament, and about ten pages of dry reflections on the proceedings of the queen and her servants; which his coadjutors, the earl of Nottingham, Mr. Dunton, and the Flying Post, had long ago set before us in a much clearer light.

In popish countries, when some impostor cries out, A miracle! a miracle! it is not done with a hope or intention of converting hereticks, but confirming the deluded vulgar in their errours; and so the cry goes round without examining into the cheat. Thus the whigs among us give about the cry, A pamphlet! a pamphlet! the Crisis! the Crisis! not with a view of convincing their adversaries, but to raise the spirits of their friends, recall their stragglers, and unite their numbers, by sound and impudence; as bees assemble and cling together by the noise of brass.

That no other effect could be imagined or hoped for, by the publication of this timely treatise, will Rh