Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/217

Rh be nameless, are the only thriving people among us: and I have often wished, that a law were enacted to hang up half a dozen bankers every year, and thereby interpose, at least some short delay to the farther ruin of Ireland.

Ye are idle, ye are idle, answered Pharaoh to the Israelites, when they complained to his majesty, that they were forced to make bricks without straw.

England enjoys every one of those advantages for enriching a nation, which I have above enumerated; and, into the bargain, a good million returned to them every year without labour or hazard, or one farthing value received on our side: but how long we shall be able to continue the payment, I am not under the least concern. One thing I know, that when the hen is starved to death, there will be no more golden eggs.

I think it a little unhospitable, and others may call it a subtile piece of malice, that because there may be a dozen families in this town, able to entertain their English friends in a generous manner at their tables, their guests upon their return to England shall report, that we wallow in riches and luxury.

Yet, I confess, I have known an hospital, where all the household officers grew rich; while the poor, for whose sake it was built, were almost starving for want of food and raiment.

To conclude, if Ireland be a rich and flourishing kingdom, its wealth and prosperity must be owing to certain causes, that are yet concealed from the whole race of mankind; and the effects are equally invisible. We need not wonder at strangers, when they deliver such paradoxes; but a native