Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/127

Rh are wholly strangers to his nature; but he is not without ambition. There is one thing peculiar in his temper, which I altogether disapprove, and do not remember to have heard or met with in any other man's character: I mean an easiness and indifference under any imputation, although he be ever so innocent, and although the strongest probabilities and appearances are against him; so that I have known him often suspected by his nearest friends, for some months, in points of the highest importance, to a degree that they were ready to break with him, and only undeceived by time and accident. His detractors, who charge him with cunning, are but ill acquainted with his character; for, in the sense they take the word, and as it is usually understood, I know no man to whom that mean talent could be with less justice applied, as the conduct of affairs, while he has been at the helm, does clearly demonstrate, very contrary to the nature and principles of cunning, which is always employed in serving little turns, proposing little ends, and supplying daily exigencies, by little shifts and expedients. But to rescue a prince out of the hands of insolent subjects, bent upon such designs as must probably end in the ruin of the governrnment; to find out means for paying such exorbitant debts as this nation hath been involved in, and reduce it to a better management; to make a potent enemy offer advantageous terms of peace, and deliver up the most important fortress of his kingdom as a security; and this against all the opposition mutually raised and inflamed by parties and allies: such performances can only be called cunning by those, whose want of understanding, or of candour, puts them Rh