SOME FEW THOUGHTS

CONCERNING THE REPEAL OF THE TEST.

THOSE of either side who have written upon this subject of the test, in making or answering objections, seem to fail, by not pressing suffici ently the chief point, upon which the controversy turns. The arguments used by those who write for the church, are very good in their kind; but will have little force under the present corruptions of mankind, because the authors treat this subject tanquam in republicâ Platonis, et non in face Romuli.

It must be confessed, that, considering how few employments of any consequence fall to the share of those English who are born in this kingdom, and those few very dearly purchased, at the expense of conscience, liberty, and all regard for the public good, they are not worth contending for: and if nothing but profit were in the case, it would hardly cost me one sigh, when I should see those few scraps thrown among every species of fanatics, to scuffle for among themselves.

And this will infallibly be the case, after repealing the test. For every subdivision of sect will, with equal justice, pretend to have a share ; and, as it is usual with sharers, will never think they have enough, while any pretender is left unprovided. I shall not except the quakers; be

cause,

cause, when the passage is once let open for sects to partake in public emoluments, it is very probable the lawfulness of taking oaths, and wearing carnal weapons, may be revealed to the brotherhood: which thought, I confess, was first put into my head by one of the shrewdest quakers in this kingdom*.

* The quaker hinted at by Dr. Swift was Mr. George Rooke, a linen-draper, a man who had a very good taste for wit, and read abundance of history, and was, perhaps, one of the most learned quakers in the world. He was author of an humorous pastoral in the quaker style. In a letter to Mr. Pope, Aug. 30, 1716, Dr. Swift says, "There is a young ingenious quaker in this town, who writes verses to his mistress, not very correct, but in a strain purely what a poetical quaker should do, commending her look and habit, &c. It gave me a hint, that a set of quaker pastorals might succeed, if our friend Gay would fancy it; and I think it a fruitful subject: pray hear what he says."-This hint produced from Mr. Gay, "The Espousal, a sober Eclogue, between two of the People called Quakers," in which their peculiarity is well delineated. N.

OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS

ON HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS*.

THIS book, by some errors and neglects in the

style, seems not to have received the author's last correction f. It is written with some vehemence, very pardonable in one who had been an observer and a sufferer, in England, under that diabolical fanatic sect, which then destroyed church and state. But by comparing, in my memory, what I have read in other histories, he neither aggravates nor falsifies any facts. His partiality appears chiefly in setting the actions of Calvinists in the strongest light, without equally dwelling on those of the other side; which, however, to say the truth, was not his proper business. And yet he might have spent some more words on the inhuman massacre of Paris, and other parts of France, which no provocation (and yet the king had the greatest possible) could excuse, or much extenuate. The author, according to the current opinion of the age he lived in, had too high notions of regal power; led by the common mistake of the term Supreme Magistrate, and not rightly distinguishing between the legislature and administration into which mistake the clergy fell or continued, in the reign of Charles II. as I have shown and explained in a treatise, &c.

March 6, 1727-8.

J. SWIFT.

* Written by the Dean in the beginning of the book, on one of the blank leaves.

N.

It was published in 1670.

N.

To

To the Honourable House of Commons, &c.

THE HUMBLE

PETITION OF THE FOOTMEN

IN AND ABOUT THE CITY OF DUBLIN 1732.

HUMBLY SHOWETH,

THAT

your petitioners are a great and numerous society, endowed with several privileges time out of mind.

That certain lewd, idle, and disorderly persons, for several months past, as it is notoriously known, have been daily seen in the public walks of this city, habited sometimes in green coats, and sometimes laced, with long oaken cudgels in their hands, and without swords; in hopes to procure favour by that advantage with a great number of ladies who frequent those walks; pretending and giving themselves out to be the true genuine Irish footmen; whereas they can be proved to be no better than common toupees, as a judicious eye may soon discover, by their awkward, clumsy, ungenteel gait and behaviour; by their unskilfulness in dress even with the advantage of our habits; by their ill-favoured countenances, with an air of impudence and dulness peculiar to the rest of their brethren, who have not yet arrived at that transcendent pitch of assurance; and although it may be justly apprehended that they will do so in time, if these counterfeits shall happen to succeed

ceed in their evil designs of passing for real footmen, thereby to render themselves more amiable to the ladies.

Your petitioners do farther allege, that many of the said counterfeits, upon a strict examination, have been found in the act of strutting, staring, swearing, swaggering, in a manner that plainly showed their best endeavours to imitate us. Wherein although they did not succeed, yet by their ignorant and ungainly way of copying our graces, the utmost indignity was endeavoured to be cast upon our whole profession.

Your petitioners do therefore make it their humble request, that this honourable house (tó many of whom your petitioners are nearly allied) will please to take this grievance into your most serious consideration: humbly submitting, whether it would not be proper, that certain officers might, at the public charge, be employed to search for, and discover all such counterfeit footmen; to carry them before the next justice of peace, by whose warrant, upon the first conviction, they shall be stripped of their coats and oaken ornaments, and be set two hours in the stocks; upon the second conviction, besides stripping, be set six hours in the stocks, with a paper pinned on their breasts signifying their crime in large capital letters, and in the following words: "A. B. commonly called A. B., esq., a toupee, and a notorious impostor, who presumed to personate a true Irish footman.'

And for any other offence, the said toupee shall be committed to Bridewell, whipped three times, forced to hard labour for a month, and not

to