stakable. It is worth remembering,
however, that several of the proposals, such as those for closing the
public-houses at twelve o'clock at night; the penalizing of publicans
who supplied drink to drunken customers; the building of churches, have
since been adopted.

I cannot agree with Mr. Churton Collins ("Jonathan Swift," pp. 59-61) in
suspecting Swift of a special policy of self-interest in writing the
"Project." Swift was too honest a man to use the religious sentiment for
the purpose of counteracting any bad impression his previous writings
had made on those who had the power to advance him. However much he
might delight in the possession of high worldly station, he would never
so prostitute himself to obtain it. Nor did he care to let the world
into the secret of his heart. Indeed, all his life Swift seemed to hide,
almost jealously, the genuine piety of his nature. Whatever suspicion of
policy has surrounded the tract must be ascribed to the well-intentioned
letter of the Earl of Berkeley above quoted; and the Earl would not have
written thus had he felt Swift's motive to be any other than a purely
impersonal one.

Steele, in his review of the "Project" in the fifth "Tatler" (April
20th, 1709), makes some interesting observations, and seems to take
special note of the "Person of Honour," in the character of which Swift
wrote it. Writing from Will's Coffee-House, Steele says: "This week
being sacred to holy things, and no public diversions allowed, there has
been taken notice of even here, a little Treatise, called 'A Project for
the Advancement of Religion: dedicated to the Countess of Berkeley.' The
title was so uncommon, and promised so peculiar a way of thinking, that
every man here has read it, and as many as have done so have approved
it. It is written with the spirit of one who has seen the world enough
to undervalue it with good breeding. The author must certainly be a man
of wisdom, as well as piety, and have spent as much time in the exercise
of both. The real causes of the decay of the interests of religion are
set forth in a clear and lively manner, without unseasonable passions;
and the whole air of the book, as to the language, the sentiments, and
the reasonableness, show it was written by one whose virtue sits easy
about him, and to whom vice is thoroughly contemptible. It was said by
one of this company, alluding to that knowledge of the world the author
seems to have, the man writes much like a