write all my mind, because my dear mistress is not well; and I think I may lay her illness to the charge of the treasurer, who, for three weeks together, was teasing and vexing her without intermission, and she could not get rid of him till Tuesday last. I must put you in mind of one passage in your letter to me, which is, I pray God to send you wise and faithful friends to advise you at this time, when there are so great difficulties to struggle with. That is very plain and true; therefore will you, who have gone through so much, and taken more pains than any body, and given wise advice (if that wretched man had had sense enough, and honesty to have taken it) I say will you leave us, and go into Ireland? No, it is impossible; your goodness is still the same, your charity and compassion for this poor lady *, who has been barbarously used, won't let you do it. I know you take delight to help the distressed; and there cannot be a greater object than this good lady, who deserves pity. Pray, dear friend, stay here, and don't believe us all alike, to throw away good advice, and despise every body's undrstanding but their own. I could say a great deal upon the subject, but I must go to her, for she is not well. This comes to you by a safe hand, so that neither of us need be in any pain about it. "My lord and brother are in the country. My sister and girls are your humble servants." So warm and pressing a letter, from one who made, and unmade ministers (for it was to her lord Oxford owed his advancement, as well as his disgrace) intreating, nay, in a manner imploring him to come and be their chief counsellor and director, in their new plan of administration; might have opened the most inviting prospects to Swift, of gratifying his utmost ambition with regard to his own * The queen. S. interests; and at the same time, of accomplishing the plan which he invariably pursued, with respect to those of the publick. But to a man of his delicate sense of honour, there was an insuperable bar in the way to prevent his embracing so flattering an offer. He had two days before received the following letter from lord Oxford, upon his losing the staff. "If I tell my dear friend the value I put upon his undeserved friendship, it will look like suspecting you or myself. Though I have had no power since the twenty-fifth of July 1713, I believe now, as a private man, I may prevail to renew your licence of absence, conditionally you will be present with me; for to morrow morning I shall be a private person. When I have settled my domestick affairs here, I go to Wimple; thence, alone, to Herefordshire. If I have not tired you téte à tête, fling away so much time upon one, who loves you. And I believe, in the mass of souls, ours were placed near each other. I send you an imitation of Dryden, as I went to Kensington. "To serve with love, And shed your blood, Tis fatal to be good." In these two letters, there were two roads opened to Swift. One, leading to preferment, power, and all that his most ambitious hopes could aspire after. The other to the melancholy cell of a disgraced minister, abandoned by an ungrateful world; where he might have the satisfaction of affording him in his distress, that sovereign balm of consolation, which can only be administered by a sincere friend. Swift hesitated not a moment in his choice of the alternative, as may be seen by his letter to miss VOL, I. Vanhomrigh, written soon after his receipt of the other two. 66 Who told you I was going to Bath? No such thing. But poor lord Oxford desires I will go with him to Herefordshire; and I only expect his answer, whether I shall go there before, or meet him hereabouts, or go to Wimple (his son's house) and so with him down and I expect to leave this place in two or three days, one way or other. I will stay with him till the parliament meets again, if he desires it. I am written to earnestly by somebody, to come to town, and join with those people now in power; but I will not do it. Say nothing of this, but guess the person. I told lord Oxford I would go with him when he was out; and now he begs it of me, I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his faults, as he was minister of state; but you know his personal kindness to me was excessive. He distinguised and chose me, above all other men, while he was great, and his letter to me, the other day, was the most moving imaginable," &c. * There is one expression in lord Oxford's letter which is indeed very affecting, where he says, I go to Wimple, thence. alone to Herefordshire. What! this great minister, who had conferred so many obligations, and made the fortunes of such numbers, not to find one companion to attend him in his reverse of fortune! Methinks I see Swift * This resolution of Swift's is fully confirmed in a letter to archdeacon Wall, dated August 8, 1714. "Upon the earl of Oxford's removal, he desired I would go with him into Here fordshire, which I consented to, and wrote you aword of it, desiring you would renew my licence of absence at the end of this mouth, for I think it then expires. I had earnest invitations from those in power to go to town, and assist them in their new ministry, which I resolved to excuse; but before I could write,' news came of the queen's death, and all our schemes broke to shatters." S. reading this passage, and exclaiming, "What, alone! No, while I exist, my friend shall not go alone into Herefordshire." This conduct was the more noble in Swift, as during the whole course of their intimacy, he never received one personal favour from the minister, though treated with the most unreserved kindness by the man. Nay, whether it were owing to his procrastinating temper, or as Swift calls it in another place, his unmeasureable publick thrift, he had neglected to procure for him an order for a thousand pound on the treasury, to pay the debt contracted by him upon his introduction to the deanery, which was all the reward Swift ever asked for his services *. And there is reason to believe, from a passage in a letter of Dr. Arbuthnot to him, dated July 14, that Swift was distressed for money at that time, on account of that neglect. The passage is this, "Do not think I make you a bare compliment in what I am going to say, for I can assure you I am in earnest. I am in hopes to have two hundred pounds before I go out of town, and you may command all, or any part of it you please, as long as you have occasion for it." And in the same letter it appears, that the doctor had been desired by Swift to apply to lord Bolingbroke for fifty pounds due to him from that lord, where he says, "As to the fifty pounds, he *Nothing can show more the strong desire, which lord Bolingbroke had to attach Swift to his interest upon his getting into power, than his taking care, during his short ministry of three days only, to have an order signed by the queen on the treasury, to pay that sum to Swift, though by her sudden death he reaped no advantage from it. It appears, that Swift had this order in his possession when he visited London in the year 1726; for he says, in a letter to Dr. Sheridan, "Tell the archdeacon that I never asked for my thousand pounds, which he hears I have got, though I mentioned it to the princess the last time I saw her; but I bid her tell Walpole, I scorned to ask him for it." S. (lord Bolingbroke) was ready to pay it, and if he had had it about him, would have given it to me." But it is highly probable, from the great delicacy of Swift's sentiments, that this very circumstance of his lying under no obligation to lord Oxford, was what rendered his attachment to him the stronger, as it must proceed whoily from pure disinterested friendship. That this was his way of thinking, may be seen from several of his letters. In that of July 1, 1714, on his retiring to Letcombe, he thus expresses himself to the Lord Treasurer: "My Lord, "WHEN I was with you, I have said more than once, that I would never allow quality or station made any real difference between men. Being now absent and forgotten, I have changed my mind: you have a thousand people who can pretend they love you, with as much appearance of sincerity as I so that, according to common justice, I can have but a thousandth part in return of what I give. And this difference is wholly owing to your station. And the misfortune is still the greater, because I loved you so much the less for your station: for, in your pub lick capacity, you have often angered me to the heart; but as a private man, never once*. So that, *In the several accounts given of lord Oxford by Swift in different parts of his writings, there seems to be something con tradictory; as in some places he extols him to the skies, and in others, imputes great weakness and faults to him. But this arises from the view he gives of him in two different characters. As a publick minister, he represents him to have been one of the wisest, the ablest, and the most disinterested that ever lived; and he confirms this character by enumerating the many great services he had done to the state, without reaping the least advantage to himself, but rather injuring his private fortune. At the same time he shows that he was utterly unqualified to be the leader of a party, or to manage the private intrigues of a court; in which respects, partly from his natural disposition, and partly though want of true policy, he committed number less ei rours; tu |