so much
of the Politician, the next to taking Care of others, you loved to take
Care of yourself, and all possible Care too. You kept a good Byass on
your Bowl to get near the Jack at long run and secure a Mitre; and tho'
when you were disappointed, you furiously attack'd the Ministry and
pleaded your Country's Cause with due Resentment; yet even then, your
Revenge when over-tired, slept like an Hare with its Eyes open, that
while you watch'd for the publick Good, you should not overlook your
own. Besides, let me tell you _Dean_, if you will be taunting, that if
the political Secrets of the latter End of the Queen's Reign were
detected, you would be found as rank a Jacobite as many Authors in
those Days represented you to the World.

SWIFT. I think you have borrowed some of their sort of Spite, for you
seem to be in a great Fury with little Reason for it. But I must tell
you, Sir, though those Authors were ever mistaken when they called me a
_Jacobite_, I never was in the wrong when I called them Fools. As for
your political Secrets, let me be allowed to set you right, for I
assure you there are no such Things in _England_. Men are such sievish
leaky Mortals there, that they can't conceal even their own Rogueries;
for political Secrets told to _Britons_, tho' under Vows of Secrecy,
are like Bonds for great Sums seal'd in private, but Judgment is soon
enter'd up in the public Offices; and all the World knows in a trice
what has pass'd. As for the kind Hints those Writers Honoured me with,
I assure you, Sir, I despised them as sincerely as your Anger now.
Their Talents were incapable of hurting any but themselves, and
therefore I forgave them, as the Law pardons Children and Ideots. It is
true, where their Spite appeared very invenom'd, I took other Measures;
for then, as the Statute speaks of Boys, _Malitia suplet aetatem_
(Malice supplies their Want of Age) and I pepper'd them off
notwithstanding their Folly, to frighten silly Scribblers from playing
with such edg'd Tools again. But after all, what were their Works
against me, but a mere hot Hash of cold Meat, of fifty half read
political Authors, and unknown common-place Party-Writers, mix'd up
with common Reports, and a few insipid lifeless Scraps of their own
tasteless Trash and factious Venom.

PRIOR. We that are dead and love Truth, know that most Books, and
especially Party Books are made like their Paper of old Scraps and Rags
pickt up here and there; but howev