Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/359

Rh angry, nor any way hurt his reputation; a pitch of happiness and security to which his excellency has arrived, and which no philosopher before him could reach.

I intend to execute this performance, by first giving a character of his excellency, and then relating some facts during his government in Ireland, which will serve to confirm it.

I know very well that men's characters are best learned from their actions; but these being confined to his administration in that kingdom, his character may, perhaps, take in something more, which the narrowness of the time, or the scene, has not given him opportunity to exert.

Thomas, earl of Wharton, lord lieutenant of Ireland, by the force of a wonderful constitution, has some years passed his grand climacterick, without any visible efrects of old age, either on his body or his mind; and in spite of a continual prostitution to those vices, which usually wear out both. His behaviour is in all the forms of a young man at five and twenty. Whether he walks, or whistles, or swears, or talks bawdy, or calls names, he acquits himself in each, beyond a templar of three years standing. With the same grace, and in the same style, he will rattle his coachman in the midst of the street, where he is governor of the kingdom; and all this is without consequence, because it is in his character, and what every body expects. He seems to be but an ill dissembler, and an ill liar, although they are the two talents he most practises, and most values himself upon. The ends he has gained by lying, appear to be more owing to the frequency, than the art of them: his lies being sometimes detected in an hour,