Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/59

N° 19. owing to that blindness, which prejudice and passion cast over the understanding: I mention this, because I think it properly within my province in quality of Examiner. And having granted more than is usual for an enemy to do, I must now take leave to say, that so weak a cause, and so ruined a faction, were never provided with pens more resembling their condition, or less suited to their occasions.

Non tali auxillo, nec defensoribus istis, Tempus eget

This is the more to be wondered at, when we consider, they have the full liberty of the press; that they have no other way left to recover themselves; and that they want not men of excellent parts, to set their arguments in the best light they will bear. Now, if two men would argue on both sides with fairness, good sense, and good manners, it would be no ill entertainment to the town, and perhaps be the most effectual means to reconcile us. But I am apt to think, that men of great genius, are hardly brought to prostitute their pens in a very odious cause; which, besides, is more properly undertaken by noise and impudence, by gross railing and scurrility, by calumny and lying, and by little trifling cavils and carpings in the wrong place, which those whifflers use for arguments and answers.

I was well enough pleased with a story of one of these answerers, who, in a paper last week, found many faults with a late calculation of mine. Being, it seems, more deeply learned than his fellows, he was resolved to begin his answer with a Latin verse, as well as other folks. His business was, to look out Rh