Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/445

Rh place a great confidence in the benefit arising from Christians, who damn themselves every hour of the day: for, while they speak of the vainness and fickleness of oaths, as an objection against our project, they little consider that this fickleness and vainness is the common practice among all the people of this sublunary world; and that, consequently, instead of being an objection against the project, is a concluding argument of the constancy and solidity of their sure gain by it; a never-failing argument, as he tells us, among the brethren of his cloth.

The ambitious citizens, who, from being plunged deep in the wealthy whirlpool of the South Sea, are in hopes of rising to such seats of fortune and dignity as would best suit with their mounting and aspiring hopes, may imagine that this new fund, in the sister nation, may prove a rival to theirs; and, by drawing off a multitude of subscribers, will, if it makes a flood in Ireland, cause an ebb in England. But it may be answered, That though our author avers "that this fund will vie with the South Sea," yet it will not clash with it. On the contrary, the subscribers to this must wish the increase of the South Sea (so far from being its rival), because the multitude of people raised by it, who were plain speakers, as they were plain dealers before, must learn to swear, in order to become their clothes, and to be gentlemen à la mode; while those who are ruined, I mean Jóbed by it, will dismiss the patience of their old pattern, swear at their condition, and curse their Maker in their distress: and so the increase of that English fund will be demonstratively an ample augmentation of the Irish one, so far will it be from being rivalled by it; so Rh