Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/296

286 by fellows in disguise, to give notice where those traitors were to meet, in order to concert their villanous designs.

I have no more to add upon this article, than an humble proposal, that those who cry this root at present in our streets of Dublin may be compelled by the justices of the peace to pronounce turnip, and not turnup; for I am afraid we have still too many snakes in our bosom, and it would be well if their cellars were sometimes searched, when the owners least expected it; for I am not out of fear, that latet anguis in herba.

Thus we are zealous in matters of small moment, while we neglect those of the highest importance. I have already made it manifest, that all these cries were contrived in the worst of times, under the ministry of that desperate statesman Robert, late earl of Oxford; and for that very reason ought to be rejected with horrour, as begun in the reign of jacobites, and may well be numbered among the rags of popery and treason; or, if it be thought proper that these cries must continue, surely they ought to be only trusted in the hands of true protestants, who have given security to the government. A MODEST