Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/432

424 desire my thoughts as a friend, and not as I am member of parliament, I must assure you they are exactly the same in both capacities.

I must begin by telllng you, we are generally surprised at your wonderful kindness to us on this occasion, in being so very industrious to teach us to see our interests in a point, where we are so unable to see it ourselves. This has given us some suspicion; and though in my own particular I am hugely bent to believe, that whenever you concern yourselves in our affairs, it is certainly for our good, yet I have the misfortune to be something singular in this belief; and therefore I never attempt to justify it, but content myself to possess my own opinion in private, for fear of encountering men of more wit or words, than I have to spare.

We at this distance, who see nothing of the spring of action, are forced, by mere conjecture to assign two reasons for your desiring us to repeal the sacramental test; one is, because you are said to imagine it will be a step toward the like good work in England. The other more immediate, that it will open a way for rewarding several persons, who have well deserved upon a great occasion, but who are now unqalified through that impediment.

I do not frequently quote poets, especially English; but I remember there is in some of Mr. Cowley's love verses a strain, that I thought extraordinary at fifteen, and have often since imagined it to be spoken by Ireland.

In