integrity, and his unwearied endeavours in serving the publick, he obtained such an ascendancy over his countrymen, as perhaps no private citizen ever attained in any age or country. He was known over the whole kingdom by the title of THE Dean, given to him by way of pre-eminence, as it were by common consent; and when THE DEAN was mentioned, it always carried with it the idea of the first and greatest man in the kingdom. THE Dean said this; THE DEAN did that; whatever he said or did was received as infallibly right; with the same degree of implicit credit given to it, as was paid to the Stagyrite of old, or to the modern popes. We may judge of the greatness of his influence, from a passage in a letter of lord Carteret to him, March 24, 1732, who was at that time chief governor of Ireland, "I know by experience how much the city of Dublin thinks itself under your protection; and how strictly they used to obey all orders fulminated from the sovereignty of St. Patrick's." And in the postscript to another of March 24, 1736, he says, "When people ask me how I governed Ireland? I say, that I pleased Dr. Swift."

But great as his popularity was, it was chiefly confined to the middling, and lower class of mankind. To the former of these his chief applications were made, upon a maxim of his own, "That the little virtue left in the world, is chiefly to be found among the middle rank of mankind, who are neither allured out of her paths by ambition, nor driven by poverty."

All of this class he had secured almost to a man. And by the lower ranks and rabble in general, he

was

was reverenced almost to adoration. They were possessed with an enthusiastick love to his person, to protect which they would readily hazard their lives; yet on his appearance among them, they felt something like a religious awe, as if in the presence of one of a superiour order of beings. At the very sight of him, when engaged in any riotous proceedings, they would instantly fly different ways, like school-boys at the approach of their master; and he has been often known, with a word, and lifting up his arm, to disperse mobs, that would have stood the brunt of the civil and military power united.

As to the upper class of mankind, he looked upon them as incorrigible, and therefore had scarce any intercourse with them. He says himself, that he had little personal acquaintance with any lord spiritual or temporal in the kingdom; and he considered the members of the house of commons in general, as a set of venal prostitutes, who sacrificed their principles, and betrayed the interests of their country, to gratify their ambition or avarice. With these he lived in a continued state of warfare, making them feel severely the sharp stings of his satire; while they, on the other hand, dreading, and therefore hating him more than any man in the world, endeayoured to retaliate on him by every species of obloquy.

During this period, his faculties do not seem to have been at all impaired by the near approaches of old age, and his poetical fountain, though not so exuberant as formerly, still flowed in as clear and pure a stream. One of his last pieces, " Verses on his own Death," is perhaps one of the most excellent of his compositions in that way. Nor are two of his other productions, written about the same

4

time,

time, intitled, "An Epistle to a Lady;" and "A Rhapsody on Poetry," inferiour to any of his former pieces. The two last were written chiefly with a view to gratify his resentment to the court, on account of some unworthy treatment he met with from that quarter. We have already seen, by what extraordinary advances on her part, he was allured to pay his attendance on the princess, during his two last visits to England; and the seemingly well founded expectations of his friends, that some marks of royal favour would be shown him, both from the uncommonly good reception he had always met with, and the many assurances given to that effect. But from the time that the princess mounted the throne, all this was forgot. Nor was this productive of any disappointment to Swift, who had been too conversant with courts, not to look upon the most favourable appearances there, with distrust. Accordingly on his last return to Ireland, finding himself so utterly neglected by the queen, as not even to receive some medals which she had promised him, he gave up all hopes of that kind, and remained in a state of perfect indifference with regard to it. But, when he found that his enemies had been busy, instilling into the royal ear many prejudices against him, he entered upon his defence with his usual spirit. Among other artifices employed to lessen him in her majesty's esteem, there were three forged letters delivered to the queen signed with his name, written upon a very absurd subject, and in a very unbecoming style, which she either did, or affected to believe to be genuine. Swift had notice of this from his friend Pope, who procured one of the original letters from the countess

of

of Suffolk, formerly Mrs. Howard, and sent it to him. In his indignant answer to Pope on this occasion, he has the following passages. "As for those three letters you mention, supposed all to be written by me to the queen, on Mrs. Barber's account, espe cially the letter which bears my name; I can only say, that the apprehensions one may be apt to have of a friend's doing a foolish thing, is an effect of kindness and God knows who is free from playing the fool some time or other. But in such a degree as to write to the queen, who has used me ill without any cause, and to write in such a manner as the letter you sent me, and in such a style, and to have so much zeal for one almost a stranger, and to make such a description of a woman, as to prefer her before all mankind; and to instance it as one of the greatest grievances of Ireland, that her majesty has not encouraged Mrs. Barber, a woollen draper's wife declining in the world, because she has a knack of versifying; was to suppose, or fear, a folly so transcendent, that no man could be guilty of, who was not fit for Bedlam. You know the letter you sent enclosed is not my hand, and why I should disguise my hand, and yet sign my name, is unaccountable. If the queen had not an inclination to think ill of me, she knows me too well to believe in her own heart that I should be such a coxcomb," &c.

In his letter to Mrs. Howard, then countess of Suffolk, he says, "I find from several instances that I am under the queen's displeasure; and as it is usual among princes, without any manner of reason. I am told, there were three letters sent to her majesty in relation to one Mrs. Barber, who is now in London, and soliciting for a subscription to her poems.

poems. It seems, the queen thinks that these letters were written by me; and I scorn to defend myself even to her majesty, grounding my scorn upon the opinion I had of her justice, her taste, and good sense especially when the last of those letters, whereof I have just received the original from Mr. Pope, was signed with my name; and why I should disguise my hand, which you know very well, and yet write my name, is both ridiculous and unaccountable. I am sensible I owe a great deal of this usage to sir Robert Walpole," &c.

In this, as well as many other passages of his letters at that time, we see he attributes the ill offices done him with the queen, chiefly to Walpole; and accordingly he was determined to keep no farther measures with him, but gave full scope to his resentment, in those poems, as well as several other pieces published afterward. Upon the first appearance of the two poems, entitled "An Epistle to a Lady," and " A Rhapsody on Poetry," Walpole was exasperated to the highest degree. The editor, printer, and publishers, were all taken up, and prosecutions commenced against them. As he had full proof that Swift was the author, in his first transport of passion, he determined to get him into his clutches, and wreak his chief vengeance on him*. With this view he had ordered a warrant

to

These poems were sent to Mrs. Barber, then in London, by one Pilkington, in order that she might make what advantage she could by the sale of them, being a woman of merit, rather in distressed circumstances. This Pilkington, at the same time carried letters of recommendation from Swift toalderman Barber, lord mayor elect, by whom, in consequence

of