’em by Degrees:  However, some say this was done by some of the Grandees, as a Means to make the Priests less respected, and put the Money in their own Coffers, which has made them both rich and insolent.  They were formerly a cunning Set, but they are not look’d upon as such now, for they take but little Care, either to cultivate the Interest, or support the Credit and Dignity of their Order; and as some of them are given to Luxury, which they have not taken due Care to conceal, the common Sort do not entertain the same Respect for them they did in former Times.

However, the poor Clergy (for they are not all rich, Affairs of Religion being modell’d after those of the State, the Great devouring the Small) lead moral Lives, and there is a Sect amongst them which keeps up the golden Ball, continues the Sacrifices, and detests Perjury; but these are obliged to perform their Ceremonies by Stealth, and are prosecuted as an obstinate ill-designing People.

The Grandees have no Statues in their Houses; they own indeed a Deity, some of them at least, but don’t think the worshipping that Deity of any Consequence.  The meaner People began to be as polite as the Courtiers, and to have as little Religion, before I left Cacklogallinia.  This Irreligion I can attribute to nothing so much as the Contempt of the Clergy, whom some of the Nobility, especially of the Court, have endeavour’d to render hateful and ridiculous to the People, by representing them as a lazy, useless, Order of Birds, no better than the Drones.  They also chufe out now and then, some to place at their Head, who had distinguish’d themselves for their Infidelity, and had declared themselves Enemies to the Religion of the Country, by which means the whole Order lost their Sway with the People; besides which, the richer Sort amongst them were generally reputed to be much addicted to Gluttony.

Of the Policy and Government of the Cacklogallinians.

The Cacklogallinians boast mightily of their being the only Nation in the World which enjoys Liberty, and therefore, upon all Occasions, they talk of, and treat the rest of the World as Slaves.  They pretend to maintain, that their Monarchy being elective, their Emperors are no more than their Servants, and that they can exercise no longer a Power, than they are pleas’d to give it them, which is just as much as will serve to put the Laws in Execution, and keep the great Machine of Government in good Order; and that whenever he attempts to transgress those Bounds, they make no Ceremony of turning him out, and setting up another in his Room.  But, by what I could judge by my own proper Observation, this appeared to me, to be no more than an empty Boast (for indeed the Cacklogallinians are apt to run into an Extravagance of Vanity, whenever they speak of themselves) for in my Time my Friend and Patron the first Minister acted as absolutely, and dependently of all Creatures (except of the Squabbaws) as the most arbitrary Prince, who acknowledges no Law but his own Will and Pleasure.