Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/264

254 such as must receive a sanction from the polite world, before their authority can be allowed; neither was the art of blasphemy or freethinking invented by the court, or by persons of great quality; who, properly speaking, were patrons rather than inventors of it; but first brought in by the fanatick faction toward the end of their power, and after the Restoration carried to Whitehall by the converted rumpers, with very good reason; because they knew, that king the second, from a wrong education, occasioned by the troubles of his father, had time enough to observe, that fanatick enthusiasm directly led to atheism, which agreed with the dissolute inclinations of his youth; and perhaps these principles were farther cultivated in him by the French Hugonots, who have been often charged with spreading them among us: however, I cannot see where the necessity lies of introducing new and foreign topicks for conversation, while we have so plentiful a stock of our own growth.

I have likewise, for some reasons of equal weight, been very sparing in double entendres: because they often put ladies upon affected constraints, and affected ignorance. In short, they break or very much entangle, the thread of discourse; neither am I master of any rules to settle the disconcerted countenances of the females in such a juncture; I can therefore only allow innuendoes of this kind to be delivered in whispers, and only to young ladies under twenty, who being in honour obliged to blush, it may produce a new subject for discourse.

Perhaps the criticks may accuse me of a defect in my following system of Polite Conversation; that there is one great ornament of discourse, whereof I have