vice; he therefore foon admitted him to familiarity, whether ever to confidence fome have made a doubt; but it would have been difficult to excite his zeal without perfuading him that he was trufted, and not very eafy to delude him by falfe perfuafions.

He was certainly admitted to those meetings in which the first hints and original plan of action are fuppofed to have been formed; and was one of the fixteen Ministers, or agents of the Ministry, who met weekly at each other's houses, and were united by the name of Brother.

Being not immediately confidered as an obdurate Tory, he converfed indiscriminately with all the wits, and was yet the friend of Steele; who, in the Tatler, which began in 1710, confeffes the advantage of his converfation, and mentions fomething contributed by him to his paper. But he was now immerging into political controverfy; for the fame year produced the Examiner, of which Swift wrote. thirty-three papers. In argument he may be allowed to have the advantage; for where a wide system of conduct, and the whole of a publick 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.

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 ftability which, contrary to all experience, he thinks attainable, he propofes to fecure by inftituting an academy; the de

grees

trees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud to difobey, and which, being renewed by fucceffive elections, would in a fhort time have differed from itself.

He wrote the fame year a Letter to the October Club, a number of Tory Gentlemen fent from the country to Parliament, who formed themselves into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to animate the zeal and raife the expectations of each other. They thought, with great reafon, that the Ministers were lofing opportunities; that fufficient use 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 those whom they confidered as publick robbers.

Their eagerness 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 should 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 corresponded at once with the two expectants of the 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 last he loft his power, but kept his enemies.

Swift feems to have concurred in opinion with the October Club; but it was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he stimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows not.

'whither

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 dilatoriness 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 appealed; and the conduct of the Minifter, if it could not be vindicated, was to be plaufibly excused.

Swift now attained the zenith of his political ima portance: he published (1712) the Conduct of the Allies, ten days before the Parliament affembled. The purpofe was to perfuade the nation to a peace; and never had any writer more fuccefs. The people, who had been amufed with bonfires and triumphal proceffions, and looked with idolatry on the General and his friends, who, as they thought, had made England the arbitress of nations, were confounded between shame and rage, when they found that mines had been exhaufted, and mil lions deftroyed, to fecure the Dutch or aggrandize the emperor, without any advantage to ourfelves; that we had been bribing our neighbours to fight their own quarrel; and that amongst our enemies we might number our allies.

That is now no longer doubted, of which the na→ tion was then firft informed, that the war was unneceffarily protracted to fill the pockets of Marlborough; and that it would have been continued without end, if he could have continued his annual plunder. But Swift, I fuppofe, did not yet know what he has fince written, that a commiffion was drawn which would have appointed him General for life, had it not be

come

Come ineffectual by the refolution of Lord Cowper, who refused the feal.

Whatever is received, fay the fchools, is received in proportion to the recipient. The power of a a political treatise depends much upon the difpofition of the people; the nation was then combustible, and a spark set it on fire. It is boafted, that between November and January eleven thousand were fold; a great number at that time, when we were not yet a nation of readers. To its propagation certainly no agency of power or influence was wanting. It furnished arguments for converfation, fpeeches for debate, and materials for parliamentary refolutions.

Yet, furely, whoever furveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perufal, will confefs that its efficacy was fupplied by the paffions of its readers; that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little affiftance from the hand that produced them.

This year (1712) he published his Reflections on the Barrier Treaty, which carries on the defign of his Conduct of the Allies, and fhews how little regard in that negotiation had been fhewn to the intereft of England, and how much of the conquered country had been demanded by the Dutch.

This was followed by Remarks on the Bishop of Sa rum's Introduction to his third Volume of the History of the Reformation; a pamphlet which Burnet published as an alarm, to warn the nation of the approach of Popery. Swift, who feems to have difliked the Bishop with fomething more than political averfion, treats him like one whom he is glad of an opportunity to infult.

Swift

Swift being now the declared favourite and fuppofed confidant of the Tory Ministry, was treated by all that depended on the Court with the respect which dependents know how to pay. He foon began to feel part of the mifery of greatnefs; he that could fay he knew him, confidered himself as having fortune in his power. Commiffions, folicitations, remonftrances, crowded about him; he was expected to do every man's bufinefs, to procure employment for one, and to retain it for another. In affifting those who addreffed him, he reprefents himself as fufficiently diligent; and defires to have others believe, what he probably believed himself, that by his interposition many Whigs of merit, and among them Addison and Congreve, were continued in their places. But every man of known influence has fo many petitions which he cannot grant, that he must neceffarily offend more than he gratifies, because the preference given to one affords all the reft a reafon for complaint. When I give away a place, faid 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 Minifters, 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 esteem. Between different ranks of the community there is neceffarily fome distance: he who is called by his fuperior to pafs the interval, may properly accept the invitation; but petulance and obtrufion are rarely

produced