Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/96

86 secretary descend to be master of the revels, which by his credit and extortion he has made pretty considerable. I say nothing of the under treasurership, worth about 9000l. a year, nor of the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England; for I think none of these are granted in reversion. But the jest is, that I have known, upon occasion, some of these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland, as if they had never been indebted to her for a single groat.

I confess I have been sometimes tempted to wish, that this project of Wood might succeed; because I reflected with some pleasure, what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and 'squires, and pensioners of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars; only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat brass as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it: and I believe you are now convinced, that if the parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid) yet the managers must of necessity fail, for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step farther, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected, on purpose to gratify compliers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would main,