Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/132

124 times, or coming to age at the restoration, fell into the vices of that dissolute reign.

I date from this era the corrupt method of education among us, and in consequence thereof, the necessity the crown lay under of introducing new men into the chief conduct of publick affairs, or to the office of what we now call prime ministers; men of art, knowledge, application, and insinuation, merely for want of a supply among the nobility. They were generally (though not always) of good birth; sometimes younger brothers, at other times such, who although inheriting good estates, yet happened to be well educated, and provided with learning. Such, under that king, were Hyde, Bridgman, Clifford, Osborn, Godolphin, Ashley Cooper: few or none under the short reign of king James II: under king William, Somers, Montague, Churchill, Vernon, Boyle, and many others: under the queen, Harley, St. John, Harcourt, Trevor: who indeed were persons of the best private families, but unadorned with titles. So in the following reign, Mr. Robert Walpole was for many years prime minister, in which post he still happily continues: his brother Horace is ambassador extraordinary to France. Mr. Addison and Mr. Craggs, without the least alliance to support them, have been secretaries of state.

If the facts have been thus for above sixty years past, (whereof I could with a little farther recollection produce many more instances) I would ask again, how it has happened, that in a nation plentifully abounding with nobility, so great share in the most competent parts of publick management, has been for so long a period chiefly entrusted to commoners; unless