As to our
sleepy Countrymen, I cannot but say that it is a Pity, where Men are
commanded to give one Day of the Week, to doing nothing but Acts of
Piety, they don't regard the other Part of the Law, and labour the
other Six. This at least shou'd be the Magistrate's, and the human
Legislator's Business; but really there is no Law made, nor Care taken
about it, but every Body overlooks this plain neglected Truth, that Men
ought to be as accountable to the Magistrate, for their Time as their
Actions, and as punishable for wasting it. But our _Irish_ seem
actually to have mistaken the divine Commandment, and it is well their
Priests did not leave it out of the Decalogue, as they did the Second.
They manage, as if they thought God had bid them be idle six Days of
the Week, and Work but one, and very moderately on that one. I have
often met in Authors, and think the Assertion true, that the very
Genius of the Popish Religion indisposes Men to Labour; as we see by
their numerous Holidays, Feasts and Fasts: All which are direct Enemies
to Toil and Handy-craft, and make the returns to Work disagreeable. It
is undoubted that the Protestants out Trade and out Work the Papists;
they have (as all observe) fewer Beggars, they have fewer Drains from
their Industry, by those who sleep away their Lives in Colleges and
Nunneries; they maintain a much smaller Number of secular Priests, and
even to those, they do not prohibit Marriage, and to say no more at
present, those lazy Drones the Friars of so many different Orders, are
Cankers and Consumptions quite unknown to their Constitution. In most
Protestant Countries, more than ordinary Attention, for good political
Reasons, has been given to this great Point. In _Holland_ all are
employ'd, even the lettred World deal in Traffick and are Merchants;
nay the Deaf, the Lame, the Blind, the Dumb, and the very Dead Work.

PRIOR. The Dead Work! That is a Flight extraordinary sure, Mr. _Dean_,
and I must call on you to retract that Mistake.

SWIFT. Not at all; for tho' that Truth is a little incomprehensible in
_Ireland_, where we have no such Incitements, in _Holland_ the Statues
and Monuments of their useful and industrious Citizens, and the
Epitaphs and Praises on them, prompt and inflame the living to emulate
them, and push on their Virtue to excell, in every Art, and open every
Road to Profit and to Glory. When I was throwing away (like other
People) my Thoughts and my Time above Ground, I