four months after it, it was apparent both to friends and enemies.* While the increase of this unkindness became more and more apparent, Swift, at the risk of compromising his own influence with both, though his fortune appeared dependent on its subsistence, hesitated not to undertake the precarious and thankless office of mediating between them. In verse and in prose, by conversation and writing, by serious advice and jocular remonstrance, he endeavoured to alarm his powerful friends upon the hazards into which they were hurried by their dissensions. He reminded the minister, in the verses entitled "Atlas," of the danger of attempting to conduct the whole government, without the confidential assistance of his colleagues; with St. John he frankly expostulated upon the absolute necessity of his acting cordially with the lord-treasurer; and he was so far successful, upon more than one occasion, as to bring about a seeming and temporary reconciliation. But, ere he left England, the evil which he had twice patched up, as he expresses himself, with the hazard of all his credit, became more evident than ever; and he was scarce settled in Ireland, before a hundred letters from different quarters recalled him to resume the hopeless task of ineffectual mediation. He obeyed the call so hastily, that he did not even take leave of the Archbishop of Dublin, at which that prelate was so much offended, that he threatened to take measures for obliging Swift to reside at his deanery; and it was probably his influence, aided by the envy of the inferior clergy, that prevented Swift from being in his absence chosen prolocutor of the House of Convocation;§ an may be very bad, for I see not how they can well want him neither, and he would make a troublesome cuery." Swift's Works, Vol. II. P. 246. "The Whigs whisper, that our new ministry differ among themselves, and they begin to talk out Mr. Secretary; they have some reasons for their whispers, although I thought it was a greater secret. I do not much like the posture of things; I always appre hended, that any falling out would ruin them, and so I have told them several times." Ibid. Vol. II. p. 344. + See Swift's Works, Vol. III. p. 48, 58, 87. honour with which he would obviously have been much pleased, though he declined to solicit it. Upon Swift's arrival at London, he found that the disagreement between the ministers approached near to an explosion, and that he himself was the only mutual friend who would venture to mediate between them. There is reason to think his remonstrances produced some temporary effect. Meanwhile, he was once more engaged in the general contest of politics, and was not long without experiencing some of the perils of that envenomed warfare. Swift's principal antagonists, on this occasion, had both been old friends. The first was Burnet, whom, in an ironical preface to the Bishop of Sarum's introduction to the third volume of the History of the Reformation, he treats as one whom he delighted to insult; upbraiding the venerable champion, who had produced a pamphlet as a precursor of his folio, with his mighty haste to take the field as a skirmisher, "armed only with a pocket pistol, before his great blunderbuss could be got ready, his old rusty breast-plate scoured, and his cracked head-piece mended." It does not appear that Burnet ever noticed this harsh and disrespectful treatment, nor does Swift's name occur in that history of his own times, where he commemorates so many individuals of inferior note; and the Dean finally recorded the bishop's character as that of a man of generosity and good-nature, but who at last became party-mad, and saw Popery under every bush. In Swift's controversy with Steele was longer, fiercer, and attended by more serious consequences for both parties. We gave an account of their rupture, p. 98; and it now was increased to a public controversy. the Guardian, No. 128, Steele had attacked the ministers for negligence in enforcing that stipulation of the treaty of Utrecht, which respected the demolition of Dunkirk, and being then about to be elected Member of Parliament for Stockbridge, he pursued the subject in a pamphlet, entitled "The Importance of Dunkirk VOL. II. Swift's Works, Vol. IV. p. 147. Considered," in a letter to the bailiff of that borough. Swift, with less feeling of their ancient intimacy than of their recent quarrel, appears readily and eagerly to have taken up the gauntlet. His first insulting and vindictive answer is entitled "The Importance of the Guardian considered," in which the person, talents, history, and morals of his early friend, are the subject of the most acrimonious raillery; and where he attempts to expose the presumption of Steele's pretensions to interfere in the councils of princes, whether as a pubisher of Tatlers and Spectators, and the occasional author of a Guardian; or from his being a soldier, alchemist, gazetteer, commissioner of stamped papers, or gentleman-usher. Besides this diatribe, there appeared two others, in which Swift seems to have had some concern ;* and a ludicrous paraphrase on the first ode of the second book of Horace, in ridicule of Steele, which is entirely his composition. It is to Steele's honour, that although he appears to have rushed hastily, and without due provocation, into the quarrel with Swift, he did not condescend to retort these personali *The "Character of Richard Steele, Esquire, with some remarks by Toby, Abel's Kinsman, 1713." Swift's Works, Vol. V. p. 441. Swift was the supposed author of this piece, which is, however, with more probability, ascribed to Dr. Wagstaffe, under his directions. It is certain that Steele bestowed more attention upon it than on most of the satirical shafts by which he was assailed; and, from a particular expression, I conceive that he ascribed it, at least in a considerable degree, to Swift. "I think I know the author of this, and to show him I know no revenge, but in the method of heaping coals on his head by benefits, I forbear giving him what he deserves, for no other reason, but that I know his sensibility of reproach is such, that he would be unable to bear life itself, under half the ill language he has given me." The Englishman, No. 57, being the close of the paper so called. Swift himself alludes to the sensitiveness of disposition here imputed to him, as having been an attribute of his earlier character. "I was originally as unwilling to be libelled as the nicest man can be, but having been used to such treatment ever since I unhappily began to be known, I am now grown hardened." See his letter to Dr. Jinny, 8th June 1732, in his Works, Vol. XVIII. p. 6. The other satire against Steele, is "A Letter from the facetious Dr. Andrew Tripe at Bath, to the venerable Nestor Ironside, 1714." See this tract, in which Arbuthnot probably had some share, Swift's Works, Vol. IV. p. 279. ties. He was then engaged, with the assistance of Addison, Hoadley, Lechmere, and Marshall, in the composition of a pamphlet called the Crisis, intended to alarm the public upon the danger of the Protestant succession, and the predominating power of France. This treatise was brought forward with a degree of pomp and parade, which its contents hardly warrant, being chiefly a digest of the acts of parliament respecting the succession, mixed with a few comments, of which the diction is neither forcible, elegant, nor precise; while, by the extraordinary exertions made to obtain subscriptions, it was plain that the relief of the author's necessities was the principal object of the publication. The opportunity did not escape Swift, who published his celebrated comment under the title of "The public spirit of the Whigs, set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis; with some observations on the seasonableness, candour, erudition, and style of that treatise." In this pamphlet, Steele was assailed by satire as personal and as violent as in the former. Still, however, he remained unmoved, and his only reply was moderate and dignified. In defence of himself and his writings, before the House of Commons, among several passages in former publications, from which he claimed the honours due to a friend of virtue, he quoted the favourable character given in the Tatler of the project for the Advancement of Religion, and of its author, with the following simple and manly comment: "The gentleman I here intended was Dr. Swift. This kind of man I thought him at that time: we have not met of late, but I hope he deserves this character still." As it seldom happens that two intimate friends can descend to personal altercation without possessing means of mutual reproach, most readers will be of opinion, that Steele's forbearance, under gross provocation, deserved a better requital than the severe verses, entitled, "John Dennis the Sheltering poet's invitation to Richard Steele, the secluded party-writer and member, to come and live with him in the Mint."* Dennis's * Swift's Works, Vol. XII. P. 331. share of the satire was undoubtedly and amply deserved, by his own scurrilities against Swift ;* though the wit of the piece, as directed against Steele, is no apology for its cruelty. But, in political hostility, Swift had the attributes of Homer's champion, Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis. Meanwhile, ere the controversy had ceased between those two eminent literary characters, the strong talons of power had well nigh pounced upon both, like the kite upon the puny duellists in the old fable. Of Steele it is only necessary to say, that, by the violence of a predominating majority, it was resolved that the papers called the Sequel of the Englishman and the Crisis were scandalous and seditious libels, and that Richard Steele, Esq. for his offence in writing them, be expelled the House of Commons. By a singular coincidence, his antagonist, Swift, experienced the frown of authority at the same juncture. About this time the Scottish peers were greatly displeased with the court, and their discontent was fomented by the celebrated John, Duke of Argyle, who now openly opposed the ministers with whom he had once acted. Steele, there *Of which the following is perhaps too ample a specimen: "By thy wonderful charity, thou canst be nothing but a scandalous priest, hateful to God, and detestable to man, and agreeable to none but devils; who makest it thy business to foment divisions between communities and private persons, in spite of that charity, which is the fundamental doctrine of that religion which thou pretendest to teach. How amazing a reflection is it, that in spite of that divine doctrine, the Christian world should be the only part of the globe embroiled in endless divisions! From whence can this proceed, but from priests like thee, who are the pest of society and the bane of religion? But it is not enough to say thou art a priest; it is time to point out what priest thou art: thou art a priest who madest thy first appearance in the world like a dry joker in controversy, a spiritual buffoon, an ecclesiastical jack-pudding, by publishing a piece of waggish divinity, which was writ with a design to banter all Christianty." What follows is too shocking for transcription, and only proves, that all the mighty mad raved in the person of John Dennis. The whole piece, which is entitled a Letter to the Examiner, may be found in Dennis's Letters, 2 vols. 1721. |