a great share in the losses of it, without having tasted any of its profits. If many in England have been ruined by stocks, some have been advanced. The English have a free and open trade to repair their losses; but above all, a wise, vigilant, and uncorrupted parliament and ministry, strenuously endeavoring to restore public trade to its former happy state. Whilst we, having lost the greatest part of our cash, without any probability of its returning, must despair of retrieving our losses by trade, and have before our eyes the dismal prospect of universal poverty and desolation. I believe, sir, you are by this time heartily tired with this undigested letter, and are firmly persuaded of the truth of what I said in the beginning of it, that you had much better have imposed this task on some of our citizens of greater abilities. But perhaps, sir, such a letter as this may be, for the singularity of it, entertaining to you, who correspond with the politest and most learned men in Europe. But I am satisfied you will excuse its want of exactness and perspicuity, when you consider my education, my being unaccustomed to writings of this nature, and above all, those calamitous objects which constantly surround us, sufficient to disturb the clearest imagination and the soundest judgment. Whatever cause I have given you, by this letter, to think worse of my sense and judgment, I fancy that I have given you a manifest proof that I am, sir, Your most obedient and humble servant, J. S. TEN REASONS FOR REPEALING THE TEST ACT. 1. BECAUSE the presbyterians are people of such great interest in this kingdom, that there are not above ten of their persuasion in the house of commons, and but one in the house of lords; though they are not obliged to take the sacrament in the established church to qualify them to be members of either house of parliament. 2. Because those of the established church of this kingdom are so disaffected to the king, that not one of them worth mentioning, except the late duke of Ormond, has been concerned in the rebellion; and that our parliament, though there be so few presbyterians, has, upon all occasions, proved its loyalty to king George, and has readily agreed to and enacted what might support his government. 3. Because very few of the presbyterians have lost an employment worth £20 per annum for not qualifying themselves according to the test act; nor will they accept of a militia commission, though they do of one in the army. 4. Because, if they are not in the militia and other places of trust, the pretender and his adherents will destroy us,—when he has no one to support him but the king of Spain; when king George is on a good understanding with Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark; and when he has made the best alliances in Christendom. When the emperor, king of Great Britain, the French king, the king of Sardinia, are all in the quadruple alliance against the Spaniard, his upstart cardinal, and the pretender; when bloody plots against Great Britain and France are blown to the winds; when the Spanish fleet is quite dispersed; when the French army is overrunning Spain; and when the rebels in Scotland are cut off. 5. The test clause should be repealed, because it is a defence against the reformation which the presbyterians long since promised to the churches of England and Ireland, viz., "We, noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the gospel, commons of all sorts in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland, &c., each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high God, do swear, first, That we will sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavor in our several places and callings to aid the preservation of the reformed. religion in the church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government. Secondly, That we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavor to promote the extirpation of popery, prelacy; that is, church government by archbishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, deans, deacons, and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy." 6. Because the presbyterian church government may be independent of the state. The Lord Jesus is king and head of his church; hath therein appointed a government in the hands of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate. As magistrates may lawfully call a synod of ministers to consult and advise with about matters of religion; so, if magistrates be open enemies to the church, the ministers of Christ of themselves, by virtue of their office, or they with other fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, may meet together in such assemblies. 7. Because they have not a free use of their religion when they disdain a toleration. 8. Because they have so little charity for episcopacy as to account it iniquitous. The address of the general assembly to the duke of Queensberry in the late reign says, that to tolerate the episcopal clergy in Scotland would be to establish iniquity by a law. 9. Because repealing the test clause will probably disoblige ten of his majesty's good subjects for one it can oblige. 10. Because, if the test clause be repealed, the presbyterians may with the better grace get into employments, and the easier worm out those of the established church. TWO LETTERS TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE DUBLIN WEEKLY JOURNAL. Nemo in sese tentat descendere. -- PERS. Saturday, September 14, 1728. SIR, —I sat down the other day to take myself into consideration, thinking it an odd thing that I should cast my eyes so much abroad to make discoveries of other people, and should never care or bethink what I myself was doing at home. Upon inquiry, I found selfreflection to be a very disagreeable thing. I was ever very well with myself upon the whole; but when I came to this piece-work I saw so many faults and flaws, so many things wanting, and so many to be mended, that I did not know where to begin or what to say, but grew prodigiously sick of the subject. In fine, I became thoroughly chagrined and out of humor; till after much musing I most manfully came to a conclusion, and so softened down my long run of questions and answers into this issue: - Well, I care not though I have not got £30,000 per annum; yet I am a projector, and expect twice this sum very soon. Well, what if I am not a minister of state? I am a poet;-and straight to pen, ink, and paper, I betook me; and with these two single considerations I outbalanced the whole posse of articles that weighed just now against me. I laid the foundation of an hundred and fifty poems, odes, satires, and ballads. I compared poetry and building together, as you will see it done in my parallel in this paper. I went on in the manner immediately following, and drew out the proposals, hereafter specified, for raising 54,6747. 12s. in two years. I grew well with myself in half an hour, was as rich as a Jew and as great as a lord. I despised everybody that could not write and make songs. I put on my best wig, coat, and best laced shirt; and away I went to Lucas's, to laugh at all the prig puppies that could not speak Spanish. Before I came to this dernier, (amongst a million) I remember the few following observations occurred to me: As that a poet and projector are very near akin; the same fire and spirit, the same invention, penetration, and forecast being required to frame a project and a poem, especially projects of architecture and building; to both which I shall speak, and show their near resemblance to each other by and by. For instance, you must, both in poetry and projects, first lay your plan and ground-work; one part must precede and draw on and answer another; you must not only frame the main body, and shell or hull in one, and the drama or design in the other; but you must contrive passages, wings, out-houses, colonnades, porches, &c., which in poetry answer proemiums, digressions, parentheses, episodes, incidents, perorations, conclusions, prefaces, and indexes: Then the fable of a poem, or the ground-work of a project, must be equally probable, not too much exceeding life, taken from nature, or something very like nature. In the execution of both, you must grow from chaos and darkness to the little glimmerings of existence first, and then proceed to more lightsome appearances afterwards, keeping always the tip-top splendor and sublime in view, being very confident of the success of the undertaking, sparing no pains, nor money if you have it, to push the performance; cursing the diffidence and impatience of a certain sort of people of the quiet cast of mind, never being discouraged at any unkind muse or crossgrained deity that obstructs the pullulation of the durum vegetaturum, or who will not yet suffer the poem to become correct and complete; so that one may immediately say of the author, Os populi meruisse, et cedro digna locutum. And if at last the project miscarries, and the poem be damned, you are to curse fortune, and damn a tasteless, unbelieving world; you are to drink a bottle of port after a quart of porter, and to begin a new design next morning, et sic, in circulo ad infinitum, till fame and fortune court you, or till you are philosopher enough to despise them, which is all one, and then die; but be sure you never forgive the senseless and ungrateful town. Probatum est. Now before I proceed I must declare that I pique myself mightily upon the laudable professions which I treat of; and I do freely acknowledge and own, however the severer sort may sneer at me for it, that I find more self-complacency and joy of mind from my professions of poetry and project-hunting, than from my knighthood, though it be the very mirror and glory of all knighthood, than from my learning, my birth, my little fortune and skill in dress, or my making love, or from any other advantage of mine over the herd of men; and to cut down the cool ones all at once, I hereby loudly affirm that the joy of mind arising from one's being conscious that he is a poet, exceeds all other advantages of mind, body, and fortune whatever. In short, I'll out with the secret : -Depend on it, gentlemen, that poetry is meat, drink, clothes, washing, and lodging, and I know it. And I appeal for the truth of it to every hackney author, in prose as well as verse, in town. You will allow, I believe, all happiness to consist in imagination, that is, in men's way of thinking themselves to be happy or not; crede quod habes, et habes. Now I hope there is nobody that will dispute the right of imagination with a poet, Ergo-on which foundation, I never fail to argue thus with myself: My lord has disappointed me, true; d―n him, I have more sense than he; he cannot take my wit and my pen from me, and good sense and wit are a fortune at all times. What though he makes me hate him for a thousand reasons, he shall not, he cannot, put me out of conceit with myself— d—n him, I made two lines to-day of more worth and value than him and his, and all that belong to him. Sed Vatem egregium! Cui non sit publica vena, Hunc! Qualem nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantùm. Excellent, by my soul. Sentio tantum! and so, hang your lords and squires, your coaches, and equipages. Ad incubatum, Sir James; fear not the limæ labor et mora ; write, quod demorsos sapit ungues, and then you are happy, you are rich; Apollo's your patron, and the muses, and the fawns, and old Silenus, et Bacchus Pater, will crown you with joy, and your head will never ache, and your belly will never croak with the colic. Consider this, you wise ones, and believe it to be true: |