the first
volume of the "Miscellanies" of 1728, and the second volume of the
"Miscellanies" of 1745. In the original edition, and in the reprints
published to the time of Faulkner's collected edition, the title reads
"A Letter to a Young Gentleman," etc.

[T.S.]

A
LETTER
TO A
YOUNG GENTLEMAN,
LATELY ENTER'D INTO
HOLY ORDERS

By a Person of QUALITY.

It is certainly known, that the following Treatise was writ in Ireland
by the Reverend Dr. Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's in that Kingdom.

Dublin, _January the 9th,_ 1719-20.

Sir,

Although it was against my knowledge or advice, that you entered into
holy orders, under the present dispositions of mankind toward the
Church, yet since it is now supposed too late to recede, (at least
according to the general practice and opinion,) I cannot forbear
offering my thoughts to you upon this new condition of life you are
engaged in.

I could heartily wish that the circumstances of your fortune, had
enabled you to have continued some years longer in the university; at
least till you were ten years standing; to have laid in a competent
stock of human learning, and some knowledge in divinity, before you
attempted to appear in the world: For I cannot but lament the common
course, which at least nine in ten of those who enter into the ministry
are obliged to run. When they have taken a degree, and are consequently
grown a burden to their friends, who now think themselves fully
discharged, they get into orders as soon as they can; (upon which I
shall make no remarks,) first solicit a readership, and if they be very
fortunate, arrive in time to a curacy here in town, or else are sent to
be assistants in the country, where they probably continue several
years, (many of them their whole lives,) with thirty or forty pounds
a-year for their support, till some bishop, who happens to be not
overstocked with relations, or attached to favourites, or is content to
supply his diocese without colonies from England, bestows upon them some
inconsiderable benefice, when it is odds they are already encumbered
with a numerous family. I should be glad to know what intervals of life
such persons can possibly set apart for the improvement of their minds;
or which way they could be furnished with books, the library they
brought with them from their college being usually not the most
numerous, or judiciously chosen. If such gentlemen arrive to be great
scholars, it must, I think,