Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/260

250 I could name certain gentlemen of the gown, whose awkward, spruce, prim, sneering, and smirking countenances, the very tone of their voices, and an ungainly strut in their walk, without one single talent for any one office, having contrived to get good preferment, by the mere force of flattery and cringing: for which two virtues (the only two virtues they pretend to) they were, however, utterly unqualified; and whom, if I were in power, although they were my nephews, or had married my nieces, I could never, in point of good conscience or honour, have recommended to a curacy in Connaught.

The honourable house of commons may likewise perhaps consider, that the gentry of this kingdom, differ from all others upon earth, being less capable of employments in their own country, than any others who come from abroad; and that most of them have little expectation of providing for their younger children, otherwise than by the church; in which there might be some hopes of getting a tolerable maintenance. For, after the patrons should have settled their sons, their nephews, their nieces, their dependents, and their followers invited over from the other side, there would still remain an overplus of smaller church preferments, to be given to such clergy of the nation, who shall have their quantum of whatever merit may be then in fashion. But by these bills, they will be all as absolutely excluded, as if they had passed under the denomination of tories; unless they can be contented at the utmost with 50l. a year; which, by the difficulties of collecting tithes in Ireland, and the daily increasing miseries of the people, will hardly rise to half that sum. It