The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 3/The Examiner, Number 40
NUMBER XL.
THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1711.
Dos est magna parentum virtus.
The virtue of parents is a large dowry to their children.
I TOOK up a paper[1] some days ago in a coffeehouse; and if the correctness of the style, and a superiour spirit in it, had not immediately undeceived me, I should have been apt to imagine I had been reading an Examiner. In this paper there were several important propositions advanced. For instance, that Providence raised up Mr. Harley to be an instrument of great good, in a very critical juncture, when it was much wanted. That his very enemies acknowledge his eminent abilities, and distinguished merit, by their unwearied and restless endeavours against his person and reputation; that they have had an inveterate malice against both; that he has been wonderfully preserved from some unparallelled attempts; with more to the same purpose. I immediately computed, by rules of arithmetick, that in the last cited words there was something more intended than the attempt of Guiscard, which, I think, can properly pass but for one of the some. And although I dare not pretend to guess the author's meaning; yet the expression allows such a latitude, that I would venture to hold a wager, most readers, both whig and tory, have agreed with me, that this plural number must in all probability, among other facts, take in the business of Greg.
See now the difference of styles. Had I been to have told my thoughts on this occasion; instead of saying how Mr. Harley was treated by some persons and preserved from some unparallelled attempts, I should, with intolerable bluntness and ill manners, have told a formal story of a committee sent to a condemned criminal in Newgate, to bribe him with pardon, on condition he would swear high treason against his master, who discovered his correspondence and secured his person, when a certain grave politician had given him warning to make his escape: and by this means I should have drawn a whole swarm of hedge-writers, to exhaust their catalogue of scurrilities against me, as a liar and slanderer. But, with submission to the author of that forementioned paper, I think he has carried that expression to the utmost it will bear; for, after all this notice, I know of but two attempts against Mr. Harley, that can really be called unparallelled, which are those aforesaid of Greg and Guiscard; and as to the rest, I will engage to parallel them from the story of Cataline, and others I could produce.
However, I cannot but observe, with infinite pleasure, that a great part of what I have charged upon the late prevailing faction, and for affirming which I have been adorned with so many decent epithets, has been sufficiently confirmed at several times, by the resolutions of one or the other house of parliament. I may therefore now say, I hope, with good authority, that there have been some unparallelled attempts against Mr. Harley; that the late ministry were justly to blame in some managements, which occasioned the unfortunate battle of Almanza, and the disappointment at Toulon; that the publick has been grievously wronged by most notorious frauds during the whig administration; that those who advised the bringing in the Palatines, were enemies to the kingdom; that the late managers of the revenue have not duly passed their accounts for a great part of thirty-five millions, and ought not to be trusted in such employments any more. Perhaps, in a little time, I may venture to affirm some other paradoxes of this kind, and produce the same vouchers. And perhaps also, if it had not been so busy a period, instead of one Examiner, the late ministry might have had above four hundred, each of whose little fingers, would be heavier than my loins. It makes me think of Neptune's threat to the winds:
Quos ego — sed motos præstat componere fluctus.
Thus, when the sons of Æolus had almost sunk the ship with the tempests they raised, it was necessary to smooth the ocean, and secure the vessel, instead of pursuing the offenders.
But I observe the general expectation at present, instead of dwelling any longer upon conjectures who is to be punished for past miscarriages, seems bent upon the rewards intended to those, who have been so highly instrumental in rescuing our constitution from its late dangers. It is the observation of Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, that his eminent services had raised a general opinion of his being designed by the emperor for prætor of Britain: Nullis in hoc suis sermonibus, sed quia par videbatur; and then he adds, Non semper errat fama, aliquando et eligit. The judgment of a wise prince, and a general disposition of the people, do often point at the same person; and sometimes the popular wishes do often foretel the reward intended for some superiour merit. Thus, among several deserving persons, there are two, whom the publick vogue has in a peculiar manner singled out, as designed very soon to receive the choicest marks of the royal favour; one of them to be placed in a very high station, and both to increase the number of our nobility[2]. This I say, is the general conjecture; for I pretend to none, nor will be chargeable if it be not fulfilled; since it is enough for their honour, that the nation thinks them worthy of the greatest rewards.
Upon this occasion, I cannot but take notice, that of all the heresies in politicks profusely scattered by the partisans of the late administration, none ever displeased me more, or seemed to have more dangerous consequences to monarchy, than that pernicious talent, so much affected, of discovering a contempt for birth, family, and ancient nobility. All the threadbare topicks of poets and orators were displayed to discover to us, that merit and virtue were the only nobility; and that the advantages of blood, could not make a knave or a fool, either honest or wise. Most popular commotions we read of in the histories of Greece and Rome, took their rise from unjust quarrels to the nobles; and in the latter, the plebeians encroachments on the patricians, were the first cause of their ruin.
Suppose there be nothing but opinion in the difference of blood; every body knows, that authority is very much founded on opinion. But surely that difference is not wholly imaginary. The advantages of a liberal education, of choosing the best companions to converse with, not being under the necessity of practising little mean tricks by a scanty allowance, the enlarging of thought, and acquiring the knowledge of men and things by travel, the example of ancestors inciting to great and good actions; these are usually some of the opportunities that fall in the way of those, who are born of what we call the better families: and allowing genius to be equal in them and the vulgar, the odds are clearly on their side. Nay, we may observe in some, who, by the appearance of merit, or favour of fortune, have risen to great stations from an obscure birth, that they have still retained some sordid vices of their parentage or education; either insatiable avarice, or ignominious falsehood and corruption.
To say the truth, the great neglect of education in several noble families, whose sons are suffered to pass the most improvable seasons of their youth in vice and idleness, have too much lessened their reputation: but even this misfortune we owe, among all the rest, to that whiggish practice of reviling the universities, under the pretence of their instilling peadantry, narrow principles, and high church doctrines.
I would not be thought to undervalue merit and virtue, wherever they are to be found; but will allow them capable of the highest dignities in a state, when they are in a very great degree of eminence. A pearl holds its value, though it be found in a dunghill; but however, that is not the most probable place to search for it. Nay, I will go farther, and admit, that a man of quality without merit, is just so much the worse for his quality; which at once sets his vices in a more publick view, and reproaches him for them. But, on the other side, I doubt those who are always undervaluing the advantages of birth, and celebrating personal merit, have principally an eye to their own, which they are fully satisfied with, and which nobody will dispute with them about; whereas they cannot, without impudence and folly, pretend to be nobly born; because this is a secret too easily discovered: for no men's parentage is so nicely inquired into as that of assuming upstarts, especially when they affect to make it better than it is, (as they often do) or behave themselves with insolence.
But whatever may be the opinion of others upon this subject, whose philosophical scorn for blood and families reaches even to those that are royal, or perhaps took its rise from a whiggish contempt of the latter; I am pleased to find two such instances of extraordinary merit, as I have mentioned, joined with ancient and honourable birth; which, whether it be of real or imaginary value, has been held in veneration by all wise polite states, both ancient and modern. And as much a foppery as men pretend to think it, nothing is more observable in those who rise to great place or wealth from mean originals, than their mighty solicitude to convince the world, that they are not so low as is commonly believed. They are glad to find it made out, by some strained genealogy, that they have a remote alliance with better families. Cromwell himself was pleased with the impudence of a flatterer, who undertook to prove him descended from a branch of the royal stem. I know a citizen who adds or alters a letter in his name, with every plum he acquires; he now wants only the change of a vowel[3] to be allied to a sovereign prince in Italy[4]; and that perhaps he may contrive to be done by a mistake of the graver upon his tombstone.
When I am upon this subject of nobility, I am sorry for the occasion given me to mention the loss of a person, who is so great an ornament to it, as the late lord president[5]; who began early to distinguish himself in the publick service, and passed through the highest employments of state, in the most difficult times, with great abilities and untainted honour. As he was of a good old age, his principles of religion and loyalty had received no mixture from late infusions, but were instilled into him by his illustrious father, and other noble spirits, who had exposed their lives and fortunes for the royal martyr:
Pulcherrima proles,
Magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis.
His first great action was, like Scipio, to defend his father when opressed by numbers; and his filial piety was not only rewarded with long life, but with a son, who upon the like occasion would have shown the same resolution. No man ever preserved his dignity better when he was out of power, nor showed more affability while he was in. To conclude, his character (which I do not here pretend to draw) is such as his nearest friends may safely trust to the most impartial pen; nor wants the least of that allowance, which, they say, is required for those who are dead.
- ↑ The speaker's congratulation of Mr. Harley in the name of the house, on his escape and recovery. See the next number.
- ↑ Harley and St. John.
- ↑ Sir H. Furnese.
- ↑ Farnese.
- ↑ Earl of Rochester