Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/239

Rh never incurred the least refiection on their loyalty or their protestantism; shall the chief governor of a great kingdom be censured for choosing a companion, who may formerly have been suspected for differing from the orthodox in some speculative opinions of persons and things, which cannot affect the fundamental principles of a sound whig?

But let me suppose a very possible case. Here is a person sent to govern Ireland, whose unfortunate weak side it happens to be, for several reasons abovementioned, that he has encouraged the attendance of one or two gentlemen distinguished for their taste, their wit, and their learning; who have taken the oaths to his majesty, and pray heartily for him: yet, because they may perhaps be stigmatized as quondam tories by Pistorides and his gang, his excellency must be forced to banish them, under the pain and peril of displeasing the zealots of his own party; and thereby be put into a worse condition than every common good fellow, who may be a sincere protestant and a loyal subject, and yet rather choose to drink fine ale at the pope's head, than muddy at the king's.

Let me then return to my suppositions. It is certain, the highflown loyalists, in the present sense of the word, have their thoughts, and studies, and tongues, so entirely diverted by political schemes, that the zeal of their principles has eaten up their understandings; neither have they time from their employments, their hopes, and their hourly labours, for acquiring new additions of merit, to amuse themselves with philological converse or speculations, which are utterly ruinous to all schemes of rising in the world. What then must a great man do, whose Rh