devices that would ruin our nation. Which is the hearty prayer of,

Dear Will,

You real friend and humble servant,

HIBERNICUS.

A Letter to William Wood, from a Member of that Society of Men, who, in derision, are called Quakers.

Friend William,-I write not these lines to thee from any regard I have to thy person or thy coin; so much as in obedience to some elders who commanded I should expostulate with thee upon thy great presumption, inasmuch as thou dost still continue obstinately to persist in the evil of thy ways; and for which thou mayest surely expect to receive the reward due unto thy great and manifold devices. Believe me, if it please thee, for verily in my time I remember not to have known a greater numbskull than thou art, even thyself; notwithstanding all the friendly admonitions thou hast received time after time, thou art still soothing thy vanity, in expectation of what I am bold to affirm to thee will never come to pass. Believe me, friend, 'tis not in the power of thee or thine emissaries to compel me to take one single doit of thy filth in part payment for the worst yard of cloth in my warehouse, and I may assure thee the rest of the brethren (some few excepted) are of the same mind as to this particular. So that nothing can prompt thee to such vile wickedness, unless thou hast, to all intents and purposes, delivered thyself up to the workings of the evil spirit; who is like unto a wily adversary that seeketh all methods of plying his engines until he receiveth men into his clutches; and then it is not thy Britannias, nor thy Hibernias, nor thy much more valuable Mammon of unrighteousness (I mean thy gold or thy silver), will extricate thee from the many sorrows thou wilt then be encompassed with. And what (I pray thee) will avail thy patents, or thy grants, or thy other honours, which thou hast by thy false insinuations received by the great men of this world, who are not always moved by the spirit to do those things which appertain to our peace, but contrarywise to such as are not meet to be named. It

doth not at present concern thy friend to speak to such sort of people, saving than as it falleth in the customs of discourse; so far as it may relate to thyself, and to whom it behooveth not, I should prescribe matters convenient to be done, otherwise than such as shall seem meet according to fleshly wisdom and maxims of profane men, who delight marvellously in heaping together worldly dross, that they may (as it is written) consume it on their lusts; and therefore, according to my first motive, I shall lay aside the further consideration of the subject matter I fell into, and more closely pursue the intention of this epistle, which is writ in all simplicity of mind, to bring thee (if possible) to some sense of thy duty, and the regard thou oughtest to have for the welfare of thy friends in particular, and thy neighbours in general.

Wert not thou then the vainest of sots to imagine thy scheme should be successful, without communing with the men who were to be the purchasers of thy coin? Shouldest thou not look before thou'd leap? which would have prevented everybody from calling thee an ignorant ass, destitute of brains, in thinking to surmount such insuperable difficulties, which maketh all people to laugh at thy calamity, as it is owing to thyself; and verily, friend, I cannot better illustrate what I am saying, than to tell thee the history of the fox and the goat, who both being very much a-thirst, went into a well, but when they had drank somewhat plentiful, the matter remained how to come out. The fox proposed to the other; stand thou, saith he, on thy hinder legs upright, even thus, and then it will be easy for me to mount upon thy head, and get clear; it seemeth Reynard had nothing in view but his own profit, and lacking all compassion to his distressed friend, reproaching his simplicity, saying, if thou hadst as much brains in thy skull as beard on thy chops, thou wouldst consider in thy going in, how thou should come forth again. But this (although it may seem somewhat foreign to the matter in hand) is, indeed, exactly thy case; and truly I marvel at thy great imprudence, in feeding thyself up with hopes of ever accomplishing thy sinister ends, since thou canst not but hear report of friend Jonathan's miraculous performances in three successive operations, wherein he hath given sight unto those which be blind,

hearing unto the deaf, and speech unto them which lacketh understanding; and hath also laid open thy foul impostures to such a degree, as maketh me astonished at thy gross ignorance and stupidity; insomuch, that thy unrighteous gain, the wages of sin (which should thy project succeed) thou wouldest then have appropriated to thine own proper behoof, must in the end prove hurtful to thy future happiness, insomuch as to puzzle thee in great abundance how to adjust thy Flemish account, which thou wilt be obliged to put in the clearest light before thou canst be received in the land of Canaan. "Tis, therefore, the reason thy friend concerneth himself so much in thy behalf, not that he would give hindrance to the due execution of thy grant, but fearing lest the matter being reverst, execution should per chance be done upon thy carcass, that thou mightest on thy namesake, Wood, expiate thy manifold offences, they being such as maketh men affirm this to be very much a just tribute due from thee for the disturbances thou hast given them in times past.

Therefore let me exhort thee in brotherly charity that thou repent thee of thine abominations, lest, peradventure, thou art forced unwillingly to go the way of all flesh, inasmuch as thou dwellest among a wicked and untoward generation; which, if thou shalt luckily escape, I do verily affirm, even as my soul liveth, thou art not the only man who hath gone off in a whole skin, nevertheless deserving stripes in abundance: But if thou shalt still continue obstinately perverse in thy impious practices, thou mayst surely expect the most severe treatment from such of the elders as thinketh themselves indispensably obliged to exclude thee their society, and then thy condition will be greatly astonishing, when thou wilt be delivered up to the government of the Prince of Darkness, even Belzebub, to whom thou seemeth to me to bear some sort of resemblance in thy manner of proceeding, both of ye bearing enmity to the children of men. I shall forbear any further admonitions to thee at this time, fearing lest I should tire thy patience. But if ought should offer itself, which may chance be material to thy purpose, thou mayést expect still to hear from thy friend, as the spirit shall move. This being all the needful from him who writeth himself, in brotherly affection

Thine,

ABRAHAM WOODHATER.

The Present Miserable State of Ireland. In a Letter from a Gentleman in Dublin, to his Friend S. R. W. in London: Wherein is briefly stated the Causes and Heads of all our Woes. Dublin: Printed, &c.

[The following Tract is taken from a little miscellaneous 12mo volume of pamphlets, communicated by Mr Hartstonge, relating chiefly to Irish affairs, the property at one time of Thomas Kingsbury, Esq. son of Dr Kingsbury, who attended Swift in his last illness. The letter has neither date nor publisher's name. We are to understand that it was addressed to Sir Robert Walpole; and besides Swift's initials, subjoined to the letter, there is subjoined to the Dublin copy a half length of the Dean in his clerical dress, coarsely cut upon wood, but bearing a striking resemblance to his other portraits. There appears no reason to doubt the authenticity of the treatise, which serves as one piece of evidence, among many others, that Swift, during the short period when there was an opening for friendly intercourse betwixt him and Walpole, availed himself of it, rather to state the grievances of Ireland than to serve his own purposes of advancement. This letter contains the summary of the conference between Swift and the prime minister in April 1726, and of the letter which the Dean wrote to the Earl of Peterborow upon the same occasion. See pages 318, 319. As the representation is couched in an amicable form, the publication must have taken place betwixt Swift's return to Ireland in July 1726, and his final rupture with Walpole on his coming to England in March 1727. Sir Robert Walpole, though in many respects an able and enlightened statesman, certainly entertained the prejudices generally current in England on the mode of managing Ireland. If the Dean had only been solicitous of personal aggrandizement, it might have been readily obtained; but the minister did not choose to gain his adherence at the expence of sacrificing the system which had hitherto guided England in her conduct towards the sister kingdom, and the patriot of Ireland was not to be won at a cheaper rate than the emancipation of his country. The character of the Drapier seems to be assumed by the letter-writer.]

SIR,-By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you should apply to a person so ill qualified as I am, for a full and impartial account of the state of

our trade. I have always lived as retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of city-offices; I have never minded any body's business but my own; upon all which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found among my fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty questions you put to me, than I can pretend to be.

But being entirely at leisure, even at this season of the year, when I used to have scarce time sufficient to perform the necessary offices of life, I will endeavour to comply with your requests, cautioning you not implicitly to rely upon what I say, excepting what belongs to that branch of trade in which I am more immediately concerned.

The Irish trade is, at present, in the most deplorable condition that can be imagined; to remedy it, the causes of its languishment must be inquired into: But as those causes (you may assure yourself) will not be removed, you may look upon it as a thing past hopes of recovery.

The first and greatest shock our trade received, was from an act passed in the reign of King William, in the parliament of England, prohibiting the exportation of wool manufac tured in Ireland. An act (as the event plainly shews) fuller of greediness than good policy; an act as beneficial to France and Spain, as it has been destructive to England and Ireland. At the passing of this fatal act, the condition of our trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with the English; we made no broad-cloths above 6s. per yard; coarse druggets, bays and shalloons, worsted damasks, strong draught works, slight half-works, and gaudy stuffs, were the only product of our looms: these were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly sent to the northern nations, from which we had in exchange, timber, iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars. At the time the current money of Ireland was foreign silver, a man could hardly receive L. 100, without finding the coin of all the northern powers, and every Prince of the empire among it. This money was returned into England for fine clothes, silks, &c. for our own wear, for rents, for coals, for hardware, and all other English manufactures, and, in a great measure, supplied the London merchants with foreign silver for exportation.