Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/34

26 But because the principal leaders in this design, are the same persons, to whom, since the loss of their power, all the opposition has been owing, which the court received, either in treaties abroad, or the administration at home; it may not be improper to describe those qualities in each of them, which few of their admirers will deny, and which appear chiefly to have influenced them, in acting their several parts upon the publick stage; for I do not intend to draw their characters entire, which would be tedious, and little to the purpose; but shall only single out those passions, acquirements, and habits, which the owners were most likely to transfer into their political schemes, and which were most subservient to the designs they seemed to have in view.

The lord Somers may very deservedly be reputed the head and oracle of that party: he has raised himself, by the concurrence of many circumstances, to the greatest employments of the state, without the least support from birth or fortune: he has constantly, and wih great steadiness, cultivated those principles, under which he grew. That accident which first produced him into the world, of pleading for the bishops whom king James had sent to the Tower, might have proved a piece of merit, as honourable, as it was fortunate; but the old republican spirit, which the Revolution had restored, began to teach other lessons That since we had accepted a new king, from a calvinistical commonwealth, we must also admit new maxims, in religion and government. But, since the nobility and gentry would probably adhere to the established church, and to the rights of monarchy, as delivered down from their ancestors;