Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/153

Rh country as in town; and therefore take myself to be as well informed, as most men, in the dispositions of each people toward the other. By the people I understand here, only the bulk of the common people; and I desire no lawyer may distort or extend my meaning.

There is a vein of industry and parsimony, that runs through the whole people of England, which, added to the easiness of their rents, makes them rich and sturdy. As to Ireland, they know little more of it than they do of Mexico: farther than that it is a country subject to the king of England, full of bogs, inhabited by wild Irish papists, who are kept in awe by mercenary troops sent from thence: and their general opinion is, that it were better for England if this whole island were sunk into the sea: for they have a tradition, that every forty years there must be a rebellion in Ireland. I have seen the grossest suppositions passed upon them: that the wild Irish were taken in toils; but that in some time they would grow so tame as to eat out of your hands: I have been asked by hundreds, and particularly by my neighbours your tenants at Pepper-hara, whether I had come from Ireland by sea: and, upon the arrival of an Irishman to a country town, I have known crowds coming about him, and wondering to see him look so much better than themselves.

A gentleman now in Dublin affirms, that, passing some months ago through Northampton, and finding the whole town in a flurry, with bells, bonfires, and illuminations; upon asking the cause, he was told, that it was for joy that the Irish had submitted to receive Wood's halfpence. This, I think, plainly shows what sentiments that large town has of us; and how little