Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/264

256 friendship: with all these advantages, supported by a vast majority of the landed interest, and the inferiour clergy almost to a man, we have several times seen the present administration in the greatest distress, and very near the brink of ruin, together with the cause of the church and monarchy committed to their charge; neither does it appear to me at the minute I am now writing, that their power or duration are upon any tolerable foot of security: which I do not so much impute to the address and industry of their enemies, as to some failures among themselves, which I think have been full as visible in their causes, as their effects.

Nothing has given me greater indignation, than to behold a ministry, who came in with the advantages I have represented, acting ever since upon the defensive in the house of lords, with a majority on their side; and instead of calling others to account, as it was reasonably expected, mispending their time, and losing many opportunities of doing good, because a struggling faction kept them continually in play. This courage among the adversaries of the court, was inspired into them by various incidents, for every one of which I think the ministers, or, (if that was the case) the minister alone is to answer.

For, first, that race of politicians, who in the cant phrase are called the whimsicals, was never so numerous, or at least so active, as it has been since the great change at court; many of those who pretended wholly to be in with the principles upon which

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