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Swift wrote thirty-three papers. In argument he may be allowed to have the advantage; for where a wide fyftem of conduct, and the whole of a public character, is laid open to enquiry, the accufer having the choice of facts, must be very unfkilful if he does not prevail; but with regard to wit, I am afraid none of Swift's papers will be found equal to those by which Addifon oppofed him*.

He wrote in the year 1711 a "Letter to the Octo"ber Club," a number of Tory Gentlemen fent from the country to Parliament, who formed them-felves into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to animate the zeal and raise the expectations of each other. They thought, with great reafon, that the Minifters were lofing opportunities; that fufficient ufe was not made of the ardour of the nation; they called loudly for more changes, and ftronger efforts; and demanded the punishment of part, and the difmiffion of the reft, of thofe whom they confidered as public robbers.

Their cagerness was not gratified by the Queen, or by Harley. The Queen was probably flow because fhe was afraid; and Harley was flow because he was doubtful: he was a Tory only by neceffity, or for convenience; and, when he had power in his hands, had no fettled purpose for which he fhould employ it; forced to gratify to a certain degree the Tories who fupported him, but unwilling to make his reconcilement to the Whigs utterly defperate, he correfponded at once with the two expectants of the

Mr. Sheridan however fays, that Addison's last Whig Examiner was published O&t. 12, 1711; and Swift's first Examiner, on the 10th of the following November. R.

Crown,

Crown, and kept, as has been obferved, the fucceffion undetermined. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing; and, with the fate of a double dealer, at laft he lost his power, but kept his enemies.

Swift seems to have concurred in opinion with the "October Club;" but it was not in his power to quicken the tardinefs of Harley, whom he ftimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows not whither to go, is in no hafte to move. Harley, who was perhaps not quick by nature, became yet more flow by irrefolution; and was content to hear that dilatorinefs lamented as natural, which he applauded in himself as politick.

Without the Tories, however, nothing could be done; and as they were not to be gratified, they must be appeased; and the conduct of the Minister, if it could not be vindicated, was to be plaufibly excused.

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Early in the next year he published a " Propofal "for correcting, improving, and afcertaining the English Tongue," in a Letter to the Earl of Oxford; written without much knowledge of the general nature of language, and without any accurate enquiry into the hiftory of other tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience, he thinks attainable, he propofes to fecure by inftituting an academy; the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud, to disobey, and which, being renewed by fucceffive elections, would in a fhort time have differed from itself.

Swift now attained the zenith of his political importance: he published (1712) the "Conduct of

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those who addreffed him, he reprefents himself as fufficiently diligent; and defires to have others believe, what he probably believed himself, that by his interpofition many Whigs of merit, and among them Addifon and Congreve, were continued in their places. But every man of known influence has fo many pe titions which he cannot grant, that he must necefarily offend more than he gratifies, because the preference given to one affords all the reft reason for complaint. "When I give away a place," said Lewis XIV. "I make an hundred difcontented, and "one ungrateful,”

Much has been faid of the equality and independence which he preferved in his converfation with the Ministers, of the frankness of his remonftrances, and the familiarity of his friendship. In accounts of this kind a few fingle incidents are fet against the general tenour of behaviour. No man, however, can pay a more fervile tribute to the Great, than by fuffering his liberty in their prefence to aggrandize him in his own efteem. Between different ranks of the community there is neceffarily fome diftance: he who is called by his fuperior to pass the interval, may properly accept the invitation; but petulance and obtrufion are rarely produced by magnanimity; nor have often any nobler caufe than the pride of importance, and the malice of inferiority. He who knows himfelf neceffary may fet, while that neceffity lafts, a high value upon himself; as, in a lower condition, a fervant eminently fkilful may be faucy; but he is faucy only because he is fervile. Swift appears to have preferved the kindness of the Great when they wanted him no longer; and therefore it

thuft be allowed, that the childish freedom, to which he feems enough inclined, was overpowered by his better qualities:

His difinterestedness had been likewife mentioned; a ftrain of heroifm, which would have been in his condition romantick and fuperfluous, Ecclefiaftical benefices, when they become vacant, must be given away; and the friends of Power may, if there be no inherent difqualification, reafonably expect them. Swift accepted (1713) the deanery of St. Patrick, the beft preferment that his friends could venture to give him. That Ministry was in a great degree fupported by the Clergy, who were not yet reconciled to the author of the "Tale of a Tub," and would not witha out much discontent and indignation have born to fee him installed in an English Cathedral.

He refused, indeed, fifty pounds from Lord Oxford; but he accepted afterwards a draught of a thousand upon the Exchequer, which was intercepted by the Queen's death, and which he refigned, as he fays himself, "multa gemens, with many a "groan."

In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a journal of his vifits, his walks, his interviews with Minifters, and quarrels with his fervant, and tranfmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befel him was interefting, and no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly expofed to eyes which had nevet received any pleasure from the presence of the Dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, fome odd attraction; the reader, finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to confider

VOL. XI.

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as important, goes on in hope of information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is dif appointed he can hardly complain. It is eafy to perceive, from every page, that though ambition preffed Swift into a life of buftle, the wifh for a life of ease was always returning.

He went to take poffeffion of his deanery as foon as he had obtained it; but he was not fuffered to ftay in Ireland more than a fortnight before he was recalled to England, that he might reconcile Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke, who began to look on one another with malevolence, which every day increafed, and which Bolingbroke appeared to retain in his last years.

Swift contrived an interview, from which they both departed difcontented: he procured a fecond, which only convinced him that the feud was irreconcileable: he told them his opinion, that all was loft. This denunciation was contradicted by Oxford; but Bolingbroke whifpered that he was right.

Before this violent diffenfion had fhattered the Miniftry, Swift had published, in the beginning of the year (1714), "The publick Spirit of the Whigs,' in anfwer to "The Crifis," a pamphlet for which Steele was expelled from the Houfe of Commons. Swift was now fo far alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to decency, and therefore treats him fometimes with contempt, and fometimes with abhorrence.

In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms fo provoking to that irritable nation, that, refolving "not to be offended with impunity," the Scotch Lords in a body demanded an audience of

the

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