_, your Hopes were over-heated, I fear; though there
are many Squanderers, there are few Givers in _Ireland_ and even among
those few, the greater Part instead of giving their Benefactions while
they live, and can see them well applied; are laid in their Graves,
before their Donations are of use to the Living; for People only bestow
their Substance to others, as they do their old Cloathes to their
Servants, when they can use them no longer. This, makes me fear, _Tom_,
you would have got in few Contributions, among our own Countrymen.
Alas! _Tom_, we seem to keep our Repentance for the Time past, and our
Charity for the Future; but the poor present Time, is sacrificed to the
meanest Avarice, the falsest Pleasures, or, the lowest Ambition;
without any Care of the general Welfare of our Country, or one social
Wish for the Happiness of our People.

PRIOR. I allow all this would hold true, if the great and admirable
Effects of the Society's Praemiums, did not make it highly probable,
that I should have prevailed with several of our worthiest Countrymen,
to have assisted so great and so successful an Undertaking. When Men
see they have it in their Power, if they will join together, to deliver
their Country from all its calamitous Distresses; and to be themselves
the Sources of infinite Blessings to Millions yet unborn, their Hands
rebell against their Hearts, and even Misers learn to be bounteous. I
am not ignorant, how much Men are under the Influence of their lowest
and poorest Passions, yet still I am of Opinion, as Stingy as they
generally are, if they evidently saw, where they could do much Good by
their Benefactions, we should have more of them in the World than we
have.

SWIFT. I doubt, _Tom_, you mistake that Matter egregiously, for nine
Tenths of our Donations, I fear, proceed more from our Vanity than our
Virtue. Numbers give, as our great Master tells us, to be seen of Men;
and for that Reason, probably, it is, that there are so few secret
Corbans offered up to Heaven, and not to the World; and if this be so,
'tis plain, that People give more for the Ostentation of having given,
than the good they hope to get done by it, and therefore you must have
met with few generous Subscribers.

PRIOR. I cannot approve of your Thoughts on this Point, nay, on the
contrary, I am confident most People give for the heavenly Joy of
giving, and the seeing much Good likely to be the Consequence of their
Bounty; and from the same W