Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/459

Rh for a reflection, or jest: but, if there be any thing farther in it than a want of understanding our language, I take it to be only a refinement upon the old levelling principle of the whigs. Thus, in their opinion, a dogkeeper is as much a minister as any secretary of state: and thus Mr. Steele and my lord treasurer are both fellow subjects. I confess, I have known some ministers, whose birth, or qualities, or both, were such, that nothing but the capriciousness of fortune, and the iniquity of the times, could ever have raised them above the station of dogkeepers; and to whose administration I should be loth to entrust a dog I had any value for: because, by the rule of proportion, they who treated their prince like a slave, would have used their fellow subjects like dogs; and yet how they would treat a dog, I can find no similitude to express; yet, I well remember, they maintained a large number, whom they taught to fawn upon themselves, and bark at their mistress. However, while they were in service, I wish they had only kept her majesty's dogs, and not been trusted with her guns. And thus much by way of comment upon this worthy story of king William and his dogkeeper.

I have now, Mr. Bailiff, explained to you all the difficult parts in Mr. Steele's letter. As for the importance of Dunkirk, and when it shall be demolished, or whether it shall be demolished or not; neither he, nor you, nor I, have any thing to do in the matter. Let us all say what we please, her majesty, will think herself the best judge, and her ministers the best advisers: neither has Mr. Steele pretended to prove, that any law, ecclesiastical or civil, statute or common, is broken, by keeping Rh