Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/35

Rh ancestors; it was the practice of those politicians, to introduce such men, as were perfectly indifferent to any or no religion, and who were not likely to inherit much loyalty, from those, to whom they owed their birth. Of this number was the person I am now describing. I have hardly known any man, with talents more proper to acquire and preserve, the favour of a prince; never offending in word or gesture; in the highest degree courteous and complaisant; wherein he set an excellent example to his colleagues, which they did not think fit to follow: but this extreme civility is universal and undistinguished; and in private conversation, where he observes it as inviolably, as if he were in the greatest assembly, it is sometimes censured as formal. Two reasons are assigned for this behaviour: first, from the consciousness of his humble original, he keeps all familiarity at the utmost distance, which otherwise might be apt to intrude; the second, that being sensible how subject he is to violent passions, he avoids all incitements to them, by teaching those he converses with, from his own example, to keep a great way within the bounds of decency and respect. And it is indeed true, that no man is more apt to take fire, upon the least appearance of provocation; which temper he strives to subdue, with the utmost violence upon himself: so that his breast has been seen to heave, and his eyes to sparkle with rage, in those very moments when his words, and the cadence of his voice, were in the humblest and softest manner: perhaps that force upon his nature, may cause that insatiable love of revenge, which his detractors lay to his charge, who consequently reckon dissimulation among his chief perfections. Avarice he has none; and his ambition