Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/122

114 to this I may add a free manner of speaking in mixt company, and too frequent an appearance in places of much resort, which are equally noxious to spiritual promotion.

I have known indeed a few exceptions to some parts of these observations. I have seen some of the dullest men alive aiming at wit, and others, with as little pretensions, affecting politeness in manners and discourse; but never being able to persuade the world of their guilt, they grew into considerable stations, upon the firm assurance, which all people had of their discretion, because they were a size too low to deceive the world to their own disadvantage. But this I confess is a trial too dangerous often to engage in.

There is a known story of a clergyman, who was recommended for a preferment by some great men at court to an archbishop. His grace said, he had heard that the clergyman used to play at whist and swobbers; that as to playing now and then a sober game at whist for pastime, it might be pardoned; but he could not digest those wicked swobbers; and it was with some pains that my lord Somers could undeceive him. I ask, by what talents we may suppose that great prelate ascended so high, or what sort of qualifications he would expect in those, whom he took into his patronage, or would probably recommend to court for the government of distant churches?

Two clergymen, in my memory, stood candidates for a small freeschool in Yorkshire, where a gentleman of quality and interest in the country, who 6