Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/65

N° 19. in the smallest article of their political creed, or, who refused to receive any new article, how difficult soever to digest, which the leaders imposed at pleasure to serve their own interest.

I will quit this subject for the present, when I have told one story. "There was a great king in Scythia, whose dominions were bounded on the north by the poor mountainous territories of a petty lord, who paid homage, as the king's vassal. The Scythian prime minister, being largely bribed, indirectly obtained his master's consent to suffer this lord to build forts, and provide himself with arms, under pretence of preventing the inroads of the Tartars. This little depending sovereign, finding he was now in a condition to be troublesome, began to insist upon terms, and threatened upon every occasion to unite with the Tartars: upon which the prime minister, who began to be in pain about his head, proposed a match betwixt his master, and the only daughter of this tributary lord, which he had the good luck to bring to pass; and from that time valued himself as author of a most glorious union, which indeed was grown of absolute necessity by his corruption." This passage, cited literally from an old history of Sarmatia, I thought fit to set down, on purpose to perplex little smattering remarkers, and put them upon the hunt for an application. NUMBER