to partake in public emoluments, it is very pro❤ bable the lawfulness of taking oaths, and wearing carnal weapons,* may be revealed to the brotherhood: which thought, I confess, was first put into my head by one of the shrewdest quakers in this kingdom. †

The quakers were more likely to admit this relaxation of their peculiar tenets, as, upon their first appearance as a sect, they did not by any means profess the principle of non-resistance, which they afterwards adopted.

The quaker hinted at by Dr Swift was Mr George Rooke, a linen-draper. In a letter to Mr Pope, Aug. 30, 1716, Dr Swift says, "There is a young ingenious quaker in this town, who writes verses to his mistress, not very correct, but in a strain purely what a poetical quaker should do, commending her look and habit, &c. It gave me a hint, that a set of quaker pastorals might succeed, if our friend Gay would fancy it; and I think it a fruitful subject: pray hear what he says."-Accordingly Gay wrote "The Espousal, a sober Eclogue, between two of the Peo ple called Quakers."

OBSERVATIONS

ON

HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS.*

THIS book, by some errors and neglects in the style, seems not to have received the author's last correction. It is written with some vehemence, very pardonable in one who had been an observer and a sufferer, in England, under that diabolical fanatic sect, which then destroyed church and state. But by comparing, in my memory, what I have read in other histories, he neither aggravates nor falsifies any facts. His partiality appears chiefly in setting the actions of Calvinists in the strongest light, without equally dwelling on those of the other side; which, however, to say the truth, was not his proper business. And yet he might have spent some more words on the inhuman massacre of Paris, and other parts of France, which no provocation (and yet the king had the greatest possible) could excuse, or much extenuate. The author, according to the current opinion of the age he lived in, had too high notions

Written by the dean in the beginning of the book, on one of the blank leaves.

of regal power; led by the common mistake of the term Supreme Magistrate, and not rightly distinguishing between the legislature and administration into which mistake the clergy fell or continued, in the reign of Charles II. as I have shown and explained in a treatise, &c.

March 6, 1727-8.

J. SWIFT.

REASONS,

HUMBLY OFFERED TO THE PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND,

FOR REPEALING THE SACRAMENTAL TEST,
IN FAVOUR OF THE CATHOLICS,

OTHERWISE CALLED ROMAN CATHOLICS, AND, BY
THEIR ILL-WILLERS, PAPISTS.

DRAWN PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS AS THEY ARE CATHOLICS, AND PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS COMMON TO THEM WITH THEIR BRETHREN THE DISSENTERS.

1733.

Ir is well known, that the first conquerors of this kingdom were English catholics, subjects to English catholic kings, from whom by their valour and success they obtained large portions of land, given them as a reward for their many victories over the Irish; to which merit our brethren the dissenters, of any denomination whatsoever, have not the least pretensions.

It is confessed, that the posterity of those first victorious catholics were often forced to rise in their own defence against new colonies from England, who treated them like mere native Irish with innumerable oppressions, depriving them of their lands, and driving them by force of arms into the most desolate parts of the kingdom; till, in the next generation, the children of these tyrants were used in the same manner by new English adventurers; which practice continued for

many centuries. But it is agreed on all hands, that no insurrections were ever made, except after great oppressions by fresh invaders: whereas all the rebellions of puritans, presbyterians, independents, and other sectaries, constantly began before any provocations were given, except that they were not suffered to change the government in church and state, and seize both into their own hands; which, however, at last they did, with the murder of their king, and of many thousands of his best subjects.

The catholics were always defenders of monarchy, as constituted in these kingdoms; whereas, our brethren the dissenters, were always republi cans both in principle and practice.

It is well known, that all the catholics of these kingdoms, both priests and laity, are true whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word: bearing as well in their hearts, as in their outward profession, an entire loyalty to the royal house of Hanover, in the person and posterity of George II., against the pretender and all his adherents; to which they think themselves bound in gratitude, as well as conscience, by the lenity wherewith they have been treated since the death of queen Anne, so different from what they suffered in the four last years of that princess, during the administration of that wicked minister the earl of Oxford.

The catholics of this kingdom humbly hope, that they have at least as fair a title, as any of their brother dissenters, to the appellation of protestants. They have always protested against the selling, dethroning, or murdering their kings; against the usurpations and avarice of the court of Rome; against Deism, Atheism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Muggletonianism, Fanaticism, Brown