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 Way of Thinking, where there is little Hope of such Consequences, Men give more coldly and illiberally. I will also add, that the perceiving, how unskilfully (and therefore unsuccessfully) many bestow their Alms, is the Death of Charity, and the great Obstacle to generous Donations in others. It grieves me to say, that I have often observed, that too few give with Judgment.
Perdere multi sciunt, donare pauci.
And Numbers, through an ill concerted generosity, do not half the Good they might do, if they appropriated their Gifts with proper Skill, and knew the happy Art of giving. But giving largely to the Dublin Society, has not one Objection against it, and answers every End the human Soul can ask for, when it scatters the Dung of the Earth, to enrich the World. You well know, Dean, to give even to an useful Purpose, which ends with the Occasion that calls for it, falls short of those Charities, which extends their Views to future Ages; and therefore, to assist Societies, that are contriving for the Welfare of Nations, is a nobler Donation, than relieving private Wants that die away with the Person relieved. I will go yet further, Mr. Dean, since I have touch'd on this Topick, and assert, that to give, where Virtue and Industry are the Consequence of the Benefaction, you must allow is of higher Use, than relieving Distresses, which have been occasioned by Vice or Extravagance, and may probably end in them. Nay, to give under such Conditions, as must inevitably draw in others, to join in your Charity, and enlarge your Hopes of serving Mankind, is of the greatest Use; as it brings in Crowds to co-operate with you, and vastly out-do your Benefactions; and to give to a Plan of Charity, which is as likely to encrease as a River, the farther it goes, is of yet greater Service, than to give where their Subscription Ends like a Shower of Rain, in watering the Earth for a Moment, and vanishes with the next Sun. Lastly, to give to a few, and yet to make Numbers industrious and laborious, in Hopes of receiving your Bounty, though they never obtain it, is of yet more Weight and Importance; and this is plainly the Case of all Præmiums, where they are faithfully distributed. Now, all these Considerations accompany every Subscription to my enlarged Plan, and thence I was apt to flatter myself I should be successful, if I had liv'd to apply for them.
Swift. Well, I shall drop any Dispute on that Point: But, pray, Tom, be a little more minute in explaining your Views, and let me know if you had many large additional Subscriptions, how would you have applied them?
Prior. Why, I cannot enter into a long Detail of every Particular, but I would in General, have doubled the Præmiums of most of the Articles, which the Society has yet promoted, and in some of the most important Improvements and Manufactures, I would have trebled them. By this Means, it is hardly credible, what a Progress we should make, in all those Subjects of Husbandry and manual Arts in a few Years; and how we should work up the Industry and Skill of our People, by every Incentive that Profit or Glory could give them. I formerly reckoned up many Articles which I may probably seem tedious in repeating now, but you will make Allowances for my Fondness and Folly, as you know Mr. Dean; a Lover would as soon be tired with dwelling on the Praises of his Mistress, as I can be with naming the Things, or the Methods by which I flattered myself I could have served poor Ireland. The reflecting on them made my Life pleasant to me when upon Earth, and the Remembrance of them, sweetens my Grave to me; and therefore, though you may think them but Dreams, allow me the Pleasure of repeating them. I say, then, with the highest Joy of Heart, that the enlarging and improving our neglected Tillage, the encouraging and heightening our old decaying Manufactures, and the setting up new ones should have been the great Care of my Life, and the extending the Force and Use of the Society, when thus advanced to its Manhood, beyond what the Weakness and Inexperience of its infantine State could perform. I would have nursed up Crowds of Orphan Arts, and as they grew up, and could shift for themselves, I would have wean'd them, and brought a new Succession of others in their Place, as far as the Narrowness of the Fund would allow me. I would have brought over foreign Workmen of all Trades and Professions; I would have set up Glass Manufactures of all Kinds near our Collieries; I would have established our Earthen-Ware in the most effectual Manner, and if possible (by bringing over Hands from Birmingham) I would have improved our Hard-ware to such a Degree of Perfection as to stop that terrible Drain of our Cash. I had also designed to allow large Encouragements to bring over Foreigners for improving our Silk and Thread Bone-lace for enlarging our Paper and Sugar Business, which would be a Saving of many thousand Pounds every Year to Ireland.
Swift. Here is a fine Bundle of Hopes for a Man in Despair to live comfortably on! But pray now Tom, have you done reckoning up all your mighty Projects to make Ireland another Utopia? I am almost at the End of my Patience, for to say Truth, Tom, the List of the Ships in Homer's Iliad is not more tedious.
Prior. Why, Mr. Dean, to teize you as little as I can, I will drop a Number of others, and only touch cursorily on the Advancement of our Silk Manufactures of every Kind, as well as our Tapestry. I would have encouraged our Salt-works, and our Ship-building, and I would have set on Foot a Society, to have set up and directed our Fisheries both in the North and South Coasts of this Island. If I durst take in smaller Matters, I would have set up an experimental Farm and Garden, and in Time allowed a Salary for a Professor in Agriculture, which Columella you know so much laments the Want of, and I would have given an yearly Præmium of 100 l. for the best annual Invention in Arts and Husbandry, as much for the best Book yearly in any of the Sciences, and the same for the best English Poem; as Nations are apt to judge of each other's Genius and Talents (I will not say how justly) by the Performances they produce this Way. Nay, Mr. Dean, I would have advis'd a Præmium of at least 100 l. annually, to be given by the Society for the best Picture, and also, as much for the best Piece of Sculpture, or Statue; as these two Arts have ever been consider'd as the chief Marks and Characteristics of a polite and sensible Nation, and have always flourish'd where ever Arts or Learning have been encouraged. I had Thoughts of stopping the vast drain of our People to America, by hiring Ships which trade thither, to bring back every Irishman gratis, who disliked the Country, and would rail at it when he got Home. Nay, I had even Thoughts of printing a Collection in Folio, of all the best Irish Pamphlets, or at least, of all the best Hints in them, relating to the Service of our Country. I would have done my utmost to have gotten the best and noblest Members of the Society (as great and good Men communicate Virtue to their Friends as the Loadstone invigorates the Needle it touches) to have petitioned the Parliament for sumptuary Laws, for Hospitals in every County Town, for establishing a national Bank, for illuminating our Coasts, with Light-houses as carefully 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 Præmiums.——
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 so much of the Politician, the next to taking Care of others, you loved to take Care of yourself, and all possible Care too. You kept a good Byass on your Bowl to get near the Jack at long run and secure a Mitre; and tho' when you were disappointed, you furiously attack'd the Ministry and pleaded your Country's Cause with due Resentment; yet even then, your Revenge when over-tired, slept like an Hare with its Eyes open, that while you watch'd for the publick Good, you should not overlook your own. Besides, let me tell you Dean, if you will be taunting, that if the political Secrets of the latter End of the Queen's Reign were detected, you would be found as rank a Jacobite as many Authors in those Days represented you to the World.