The courtly circle, astounded at the daring conduct of Swift, were delighted and reassured by the lordlieutenant's presence of mind and urbanity. 66 Two other anecdotes occurred, which served to shew the bold, stern, and uncompromising temper of the Dean. The first is well known: A servant, named Robert Blakeley, whom he intrusted to copy out, and convey to the press the Drapier's Letters, chanced one evening to absent himself without leave. His master charged him with treachery, and, upon his exculpation, insisted that at least he neglected his duties as a servant, because he conceived his master was in his power. "Strip your livery," he commanded, begone from the Deanery instantly, and do the worst to revenge yourself that you dare do." The man retired, more grieved that his master doubted his fidelity, than moved by this harsh treatment. He was replaced at the intercession of Stella; and Swift afterwards rewarded his fidelity, by the office of verger in the cathedral of St Patrick's. The other anecdote bears, that while Harding was in jail, Swift actually visited him in the disguise of an Irish country clown, or spalpeen. Some of the printer's family or friends, who chanced to visit him at the same time, were urging him to earn his own release, by informing against the author of the Drapier's Letters. Harding replied steadily, that he would rather perish in jail before he would be guilty of such treachery and base ness. All this passed in Swift's presence, who sat beside them in silence, and heard, with apparent indifference, a discussion which might be said to involve his ruin. He came and departed without being known to any one but Harding. When the bill against the printer of the Drapier's Letters was about to be presented to the grand jury, Swift addressed to that body a paper, entitled "Seasonable Advice," exhorting them to remember the story of the league made by the wolves with the sheep, on condition of, their parting with their shepherds and mastiffs, after which they ravaged the flock at pleasure. A few spirited verses addressed to the citizens at large, and enforcing similar topics, are subscribed by the Drapier's initials, and are doubtless Swift's own composition. Alluding to the charge that he had gone too far in leaving the discussion of Wood's project to treat of the alleged dependence of Ireland, he concludes in these lines : If, then, oppression has not quite subdued, At once, your prudence and your gratitude; And don't deserve, and won't draw down your ruin ; If yet to virtue you have some pretence; Think how he struggled for your liberty, And give him freedom, whilst yourselves are free.* At the same time was circulated the memorable and apt quotation from scripture, by a Quaker:-" And the people said unto Saul, shall JONATHAN die, who has wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid: As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan that he died not."+ Thus admonished by verse, law, and scripture, the grand-jury assembled. It was in vain that the same Lord Chief-Justice Whitshed, who had caused the Dean's former tract to be denounced as seditious, and procured a verdict against the printer, exerted himself strenuously upon this similar occasion. The hour of intimidation was past, and the grand-jury, conscious of what the country expected from them, brought in a verdict of ignoramus upon the bill. Whitshed, after demanding, unconstitutionally, and with indecorous violence, the reasons of their verdict, could only gratify his impotent resentment, like his prototype Scroggs, on a similar occasion, by dissolving the grand-jury. They returned into the mass of general society, honoured and thanked for the part which they had acted, and the chief * See the whole address, Vol. XII. p. 489. + I. Samuel, chap. xiv. 54th verse. justice, on the contrary, was execrated for his arbitrary conduct.* Such means would injure a good cause, and, unless supported by tyrannical force, can never prop a bad one. The next grand-jury of the county and city of Dublin presented Wood's scheme as a fraud and imposition on the public, and omitted not to express their gratitude to those patriots by whom it had been exposed. Three other Drapier's letters were published by Swift, not only in order to follow up his victory, but for explaining more decidedly the cause in which it had been won. The fifth letter is addressed to Lord Molesworth, and has for its principal object a justification of the former letters, and a charge of oppression and illegality, founded upon the proceedings against the author and printer. The sixth letter is addressed to Lord Chancellor Middleton, who strenuously opposed Wood's * See two spirited letters addressed to him, probably by the Dean's friend and legal adviser, Robert Lindsay, whose counsel he had used during the whole controversy.—Vol. VI. p. 467. And he received another broad hint of his unconstitutional proceeding, by publication of the Resolutions of the House of Commons in 1680, declaring the discharging of a grand-jury before the end of the term, or assizes, arbitrary, illegal, and destructive to public justice. Ibid. p. 466. There is room to believe, that his death, which speedily followed, was hastened by the various affronts which were heaped upon him. See Boulter's Letters. But Swift was determined to gibbet his very memory, and vindicates himself for doing so. Vol. VII. p. 178. project, and resigned his office in consequence of the displeasure of the court being expressed on account of such resistance. It is written in the Dean's person, who pleads the cause of the Drapier, and, from several passages, does not appear anxious to conceal this identity. This also relates chiefly to the conduct of Whitshed, and the merits of the prosecution against Harding. The seventh letter, though last published, appears to have been composed shortly after the fourth. It enters widely into the national complaints of Ireland, and illustrates what has been already mentioned, that the project of Wood was only chosen as an ostensible and favourable point on which to make a stand against principles of aggression, which involved many questions of much more vital importance. This letter was not published until the Drapier's papers were collected into a volume. Meantime Carteret yielded to the storm,-Wood's patent was surrendered, and the patentee indemnified by a grant of £3000 yearly, for twelve years. Thus victoriously terminated the first grand struggle for the independence of Ireland. The eyes of the kingdom were now turned with one consent on the man, by whose unbending fortitude and pre-eminent talents this triumph was accomplished. The Drapier's head became a sign, his portrait was engraved, woven upon handkerchiefs, struck upon medals, and displayed in every possible |