fully as our Streets with Lamps; for applying to
his Majesty for a Mint for our Copper and Silver Coinage, and also for
hardening it to prevent its wearing; as well as for forming Canals for
assisting our inland Navigation, and for working up our Collieries, and
opening those hidden Treasures our Mines. I would have promoted by
judicious Praemiums.----

SWIFT. Hold! Stop! Where is the Man going? Are you sailing in Quest of
the North-West Passage to make a short Cut to Wealth and Trade of your
own imagining? You boddered me enough with many of these Articles
already, and do you expect I can be as little tired with them as you
are? Whenever you enter upon this Subject, you run on, Head foremost,
like a mad Hound on the Road, without minding what's before you; weak
Men, I find, tho' they cannot Think without Talking, can Talk without
Thinking. Was there ever such a Hodge-Podge of Reveries, mustered up by
a living Author, to say nothing of a dead one, that should have a
little more Sense? Why there is not in all _Bedlam_, a Man so absurdly
distracted by an Over-load of Projects. You are a sweet Politician
indeed, _Tom_, and just as fit to conquer Nations as to mend them. What
enthusiastical Delusions stuff thy Noddle? Will you never remember
_mundus vult vadere quo vult_ and be satisfied to leave the World to
him that made it, and Kingdoms to those he has appointed to govern
them? These high flown Whims of yours, are just as practicable, as
_Archimedes_ his moving the Earth out of its Place, and it provokes me
to hear such impossible Projects declaim'd on by such a Visionary, such
a Stockjobber in Politicks!

PRIOR. You try my Temper too far, I neither can nor will bear your
insolent contemptuous Way of conversing, or your opprobrious provoking
Language. If you attack my favourite Foible with such Acrimony, you
must expect I will not spare some of yours: As for your sneering at my
Politicks, I own I never was a Politician, nor did I ever set up for
one. I had too rational an Head, I thank Heaven, and too honest an
Heart, to allow me to make any great Progress that Way. And now, Mr.
_Dean_, I must tell you very frankly, I never saw or heard any eminent
Proofs of your extraordinary Skill as a Politician, except a vast Crowd
of Pamphlets; And what are they but the mere Cobwebs of Politicks, that
owe their Birth to the House being neglected, and are all swept away
when it is clean'd? You was a pretty good Patriot, but you had