The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 3/The Examiner, Number 31
NUMBER XXXI.
THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1710-11.
Garrit aniles
Ex re fabellas.
Never fails
To cheer our converse with his pithy tales.
I HAD last week sent me, by an unknown hand, a passage out of Plato, with some hints how to apply it. That author puts a fable into the mouth of Aristophanes, with an account of the original of love: that mankind was at first created with four arms and legs, and all other parts double to what they are now; till Jupiter, as a punishment for his sins, cleft him in two with a thunderbolt; since which time we are always looking out for our other half; and this is the cause of love. But Jupiter threatened, that if they did not mend their manners, he would give them t' other slit, and leave them to hop about in the shape of figures in basso relievo. The effect of this last threatening, my correspondent imagines, is now come to pass; and that as the first splitting was the original of love, by inclining us to search for our other half; so the second was the cause of hatred, by prompting us to fly from our other side, and dividing the same body into two, gave each slice the name of a party.
I approve the fable and application, with this refinement upon it: for parties do not only split a nation, but every individual among them, leaving each but half their strength, and wit, and honesty, and good nature; but one eye and ear for their sight and hearing, and equally lopping the rest of the senses. Where parties are pretty equal in a state, no man can perceive one bad quality in his own, or good one in his adversaries. Besides, party being a dry disagreeable subject, it renders conversation insipid or sour, and confines invention. I speak not here of the leaders, but the insignificant crowd of followers in a party, who have been the instruments of mixing it in every condition and circumstance of life. As the zealots among the Jews, bound the law about their forehead, and wrists, and hems of their garments, so the women among us, have got the distinguishing marks of party in their muffs, their fans, and their furbelows. The whig ladies put on their patches in a different manner from the tories. They have made schisms in the playhouse, and each have their particular sides at the opera: and when a man changes his party, he must infallibly count upon the loss of his mistress. I asked a gentleman the other day, how he liked such a lady? But he would not give me his opinion, till I had answered him whether she were a whig or a tory. Mr. [1], since he is known to visit the present ministry, and lay some time under a suspicion of writing the Examiner, is no longer a man of wit; his very poems have contracted a stupidity, many years after they were printed.
Having lately ventured upon a metaphorical genealogy of Merit, I thought it would be proper to add another of Party, or rather of Faction (to avoid mistake) not telling the reader whether it be my own or a quotation, till I know how it is approved. But whether I read, or dreamed it, the fable is as follows:
"LIBERTY, the daughter of Oppression, after having brought forth several fair children, as Riches, Arts, Learning, Trade, and many others, was at last delivered of her youngest daughter, called Faction; whom Juno, doing the office of the midwife, distorted in his birth out of envy to the mother, whence it derived its peevishness and sickly constitution. However, as it is often the nature of parents to grow most fond of their youngest and disagreeablest[2] children, so it happened with Liberty; who doated on this daughter to such a degree, that by her good will she would never suffer the girl to be out of her sight. As miss Faction grew up, she became so termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter gave her warning to be gone; and her mother, rather than forsake her, took the whole family down to earth. She landed first in Greece; was expelled by degrees through all the cities by her daughter's ill conduct; fled afterward to Italy, and being banished thence, took shelter among the Goths, with whom she passed into most parts of Europe; but, being driven out every where, she began to lose esteem, and her daughter's faults were imputed to herself: so that at this time,she has hardly a place in the world to retire to. One would wonder what strange qualities this daughter must possess, sufficient to blast the influence of so divine a mother, and the rest of her children. She always affected to keep mean and scandalous company; valuing nobody but just as they agreed with her in every capricious opinion she thought fit to take up; and rigorously exacting compliance, though she changed her sentiments ever so often. Her great employment was, to breed discord among friends and relations, and make up monstrous alliances between those whose dispositions least resembled each other. Whoever offered to contradict her, though in the most insignificant trifle, she would be sure to distinguish by some ignominious appellation, and allow them to have neither honour, wit, beauty, learning, honesty, or common sense. She intruded into all companies at the most unseasonable times; mixed at balls, assemblies, and other parties of pleasure, haunted every coffee house and booksellers shop, and by her perpetual talking filled all places with disturbance and confusion: she buzzed about the merchant in the exchange, the divine in his pulpit, and the shopkeeper behind his counter. Above all, she frequented publick assemblies, where she sat in the shape of an obscene, ominous bird, ready to prompt her friends; as they spoke."
If I understand this fable of Faction right, it ought to be applied to those who set themselves up against the true interest and constitution of their country; which I wish the undertakers for the late ministry would please to take notice of, or tell us by what figure of speech they pretend to call so great and unforced a majority, with the queen at their head, by the name of the faction; which is not unlike the phrase of the nonjurors, who, dignifying one or two deprived bishops, and half a score clergymen of the same stamp, with the title of the church of England, exclude all the rest as schismaticks; of like the presbyterians laying the same accusation, with equal justice, against the established religion.
And here it may he worth inquiring, what are the true characteristicks of a faction; or how it is to be distinguished from that great body of the people who are friends to the constitution? The heads of a faction are usually a set of upstarts, or men ruined in their fortunes, whom some great change in a government did at first out of their obscurity produce upon the stage. They associate themselves with those who dislike the old establishment, religious and civil. They are full of new schemes in politicks and divinity; they have an incurable hatred against the old nobility, and strengthen their party by dependants raised from the lowest of the people. They have several ways of working themselves into power; but they are sure to be called, when a corrupt administration wants to be supported, against those who are endeavouring at a reformation; and they firmly observe that celebrated maxim, of preserving power by the same arts by which it is attained. They act with the spirit of those who believe their time is but short; and their first care is, to heap up immense riches at the public expense; in which they have two ends beside that common one of insatiable avarice, which are, to make themselves necessary, and to keep the commonwealth in dependence. Thus they hope to compass their design, which is, instead of fitting their principles to the constitution, to alter and adjust the constitution to their own pernicious principles.
It is easy determining by this test, to which side the name of faction, most properly belongs. But however, I will give them any system of law or regal government, from William the Conqueror to this present time, to try whether they can tally it with their late models; excepting only that of Cromwell, whom perhaps they will reckon for a monarch.
If the present ministry, and so great a majority in the parliament and kingdom, be only a faction, it must appear by some actions which answer the idea we usually conceive from that word. Have they abused the prerogatives of the prince, or invaded the rights and liberties of the subject? have they offered at any dangerous innovations in church or state? have they broached any doctrines of heresy, rebellion, or tyranny? have any of them treated their sovereign with insolence, engrossed and sold all her favours, or deceived her by base, gross misrepresentations of her most faithful servants? These are the arts of a faction, and whoever has practised them, they and their followers must take up with the name.
It is usually reckoned a whig principle to appeal to the people; but that is, only when they have been so wise as to poison their understandings beforehand. Will they now stand to this appeal, and be determined by their vox populi, to which side their title of faction belongs? And that the people are now left to the natural freedom of their understanding and choice, I believe their adversaries will hardly deny. They will now refuse this appeal, and it is reasonable they should; and I will farther add, that if our people resembled the old Grecians, there might be danger in such a trial. A pragmatical orator told a great man at Athens, that whenever the people were in their rage, they would certainly tear him to pieces; Yes, says the other, and they will do the same to you, whenever they are in their wits. But God be thanked, our populace is more merciful in their nature, and at present under better direction; and the orators among us have attempted to confound both prerogative and law in their sovereign's presence, and before the highest court of judicature, without any hazard to their persons.
- ↑ Mr. Prior.
- ↑ Disagreeablest' has a bad sound; it should be 'most disagreeable:' polysyllables, in general, should have their degrees of comparison formed by, 'more' and 'most.'