The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 3/The Examiner, Number 34
NUMBER XXXIV.
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1711.
—Sunt hic etiam sua prœmia laudi;
Sunt lachrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
See
The palm that virtue yields! in scenes like these
We trace humanity, and man with man
Related by the kindred sense of woe.
I BEGIN to be heartily weary of my employment as Examiner; which I wish the ministry would consider with half so much concern as I do, and assign me some other, with less pains, and a larger pension. There may soon be a vacancy either on the bench, in the revenue, or the army, and I am equally qualified for each; but this trade of examining, I apprehend, may at one time or other go near to sour my temper. I did lately propose, that some of those ingenious pens, which are engaged on the other side, might be employed to succeed me; and I undertook to bring them over for t'other crown: but it was answered, that those gentlemen do much better service in the stations where they are. It was added, that abundance of abuses yet remained to be laid open to the world, which I had often promised to do, but was too much diverted by other subjects that came into my head. On the other side, the advices of some friends, and the threats of many enemies, have put me upon considering, what would have become of me, if times should alter: this I have done very maturely, and the result is, that I am in no manner of pain. I grant that what I have said upon occasion, concerning the late men in power, may be called satire by some unthinking people, as long as that faction is down; but if ever they come into play again, I must give them warning before-hand, that I shall expect to be a favourite, and that those pretended advocates of theirs will be pilloried for libellers. For, I appeal to any man, whether I ever charged that party, or its leaders, with one single action or design, which (if we may judge by their former practices) they will not openly profess, be proud of, and score up for merit when they come again to the head of affairs? I said, they were insolent to the queen: will they not value themselves upon that, as an argument to prove them bold assertors of the people's liberty? I affirmed, they were against a peace; will they be angry with me for setting forth the refinements of their politicks, in pursuing the only method left to preserve them in power? I said, they had involved the nation in debts, and engrossed much of its money: they go beyond me, and boast they have got it all, and the credit too. I have urged the probability of their intending great alterations in religion and government: if they destroy both at their next coming, will they not reckon my foretelling it rather as a panegyrick than an affront? I said, they had formerly a design against Mr. Harley's life: if they were now in power, would they not immediately cut off his head, and thank me for justifying the sincerity of their intentions? In short, there is nothing I ever said of those worthy patriots, which may not be as well excused: therefore, as soon as they resume their places, I politively design to put in my claim; and I think, may do it with a much better grace than many of that party, who now make their court to the present ministry. I know two or three great men, at whose levees you may daily observe a score of the most forward faces, which every body is ashamed of, except those who wear them. But, I conceive, my pretensions will be upon a very different foot. Let me offer a parallel case: suppose king Charles the First had entirely subdued the rebels at Naseby, and reduced the kingdom to his obedience: whoever had gone about to reason from the former conduct of those saints, that if the victory had fallen on their side, they would have murdered their prince, destroyed monarchy and the church, and made the king's party compound for their estates as delinquents, would have been called a false uncharitable libeller, by those very persons, who afterward gloried in all this, and called it the work of the Lord, when they happened to succeed. I remember there was a person fined and imprisoned for scandalum magnatum, because he said the duke of York was a papist: but when that prince came to be king, and made open profession of his religion, he had the justice immediately to release his prisoner, who in his opinion had put a compliment upon him, and not a reproach: and therefore colonel Titus, who had warmly asserted the same thing in parliament, was made a privy counsellor.
By this rule, if that, which for some politick reasons is now called scandal upon the late ministry, proves one day to be only an abstract of such a character as they will assume and be proud of, I think I may fairly offer my pretensions, and hope for their favour: and I am the more confirmed in this notion, by what I have observed in those papers that come out weekly against the Examiner. The authors are perpetually telling me of my ingratitude to my masters; that I blunder and betray the cause; and write with more bitterness against those who hire me, than against the whigs. Now I took all this at first only for so many strains of wit, and pretty paradoxes, to divert the reader; but, upon farther thinking, I find they are serious. I imagined I had complimented the present ministry for their dutiful behaviour to the queen, for their love of the old constitution in church and state, for their generosity and justice, and for their desire of a speedy honourable peace; but it seems I am mistaken, and they reckon all this for satire, because it is directly contrary to the practice of all those whom they set up to defend, and utterly against all their notions of a good ministry. Therefore I cannot but think they have reason on their side: for, suppose I should write the character of an honest, a religious, and a learned man; and send the first to Newgate, the second to the Grecian coffeehouse, and the last to White's, would they not all pass for satires, and justly enough, among the companies to whom they were sent?
Having therefore employed several papers in such sort of panegyrick, and but very few on what they understand to be satires, I shall henceforth upon occasion be more liberal of the latter; of which they are likely to have a taste in the remainder of this present paper.
Among all the advantages which the kingdom has received by the late change of ministry, the greatest must be allowed to be the calling of the present parliament upon the dissolution of the last. It is acknowledged, that this excellent assembly has entirely recovered the honour of parliaments, which had been unhappily prostituted for some years past, by the factious proceedings of an unnatural majority, in concert with a most corrupt administration. It is plain by the present choice of members, that the electors of England, when left to themselves, do rightly understand their true interest. The moderate whigs begin to be convinced, that we have been all this while in the wrong hands, and that things are now as they should be. And as the present house of commons is the best representative of the nation that has ever been summoned in our memories, so they have taken care in their first session, by that noble bill of qualification[1], that future parliaments should be composed of landed men; and our properties lie no more at the mercy of those who have none themselves, or at least only what is transient or imaginary. If there be any gratitude in posterity, the memory of this assembly will be always celebrated; if otherwise, at least we, who share in the blessings they derive to us, ought with grateful hearts to acknowledge them.
I design in some following papers to draw up a list (for I can do no more) of the great things this parliament has already performed; the many abuses they have detected; their justice in deciding elections without regard to party; their cheerfulness and address in raising supplies for the war, and at the same time providing for the nation's debts; their duty to the queen, and their kindness to the church. In the mean time, I cannot forbear mentioning two particulars, which in my opinion do discover in some measure the temper of the present parliament, and bear analogy to those passages related by Plutarch in the lives of certain great men; which, as himself observes, although they be not of actions which make any great noise or figure in history, yet give more light into the characters of persons, than we could receive from an account of their most renowned achievements.
Something like this may be observed, from two late instances of decency and good nature in that illustrious assembly I am speaking of. The first was, when, after that inhuman attempt upon Mr. Harley, they were pleased to vote an address to the queen, wherein they express their utmost detestation of the fact, their high esteem and great concern for that able minister, and justly impute his misfortunes to that zeal for her majesty's service, which had drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction. I dare affirm that so distinguishing a mark of honour and good will, from such a parliament, was more acceptable to a person of Mr. Harley's generous nature, than the most bountiful grant that was ever yet made to a subject; as her majesty's answer, filled with gracious expressions in his favour, adds more to his real glory, than any titles she could bestow. The prince and representatives of the whole kingdom, join in their concern for so important a life; these are the true rewards of virtue; and this is the commerce between noble spirits, in a coin, which the giver knows where to bestow, and the receiver how to value, although neither avarice nor ambition would be able to comprehend its worth.
The other instance I intend to produce of decency and good nature in the present house of commons, relates to their most worthy speaker[2]; who having[3] unfortunately lost his eldest son, the assembly, moved with a generous pity for so sensible an affliction, adjourned themselves for a week, that so good a servant for the publick might have some interval to wipe away a father's tears. And indeed that gentleman has too just an occasion for his grief, by the death of a son, who had already acquired so great a reputation for every amiable quality, and who might have lived to be so great an honour and an ornament to his ancient family.
Before I conclude, I must desire one favour of the reader; that when he thinks it worth his while to peruse any paper written against the Examiner, he will not form his judgment by any mangled quotation out of it, which he finds in such papers, but be so just as to read the paragraph referred to, which I am confident will be found a sufficient answer to all that ever those papers can object: at least I have seen above fifty of them, and never yet observed one single quotation transcribed with common candour.
- ↑ The qualification required by this act is some estate in land, either in possession or certain reversion. See No. 44.
- ↑ William Bromley, esq. elected speaker, Nov. 23, 1710; and sworn of the privy council, June 23, 1711. He was the author of a volume of Travels through France and Italy, which has been much ridiculed on account of the minuteness, with which trifling circumstances are related in it. See lord Lyttelton's excellent letters to his father, Letter IV. He died February 6, 1732.
- ↑ Who having,' &c. Better thus 'upon whose having unfortunately lost his eldest son, the assembly,' &c. As in the other 'way, who' seems to be a nominative referring to no verb.