been plausibly uttered by report, to the prejudice of a measure against which, generally, his most indignant antipathies were enlisted. Topics so judiciously chosen, and handled with all the rough energy and caustic humour of Swift, could hardly have failed to produce the desired effect; and the success of these tracts was altogether unprecedented in the history of Ireland. Men of all ranks, of all politics, of all religions, forgot their differences in the one universal sympathy which bound them by all means, and at every peril, and to the last extremity, to_resist the threatened imposition. The two houses of parliament united in addressing the sovereign against the measure, and the example of the legislature was followed in detail by every class and section of the community, against the introduction of this hated coin. Combinations of every order, from the most opulent merchants down to the pedlars, ballad-singers and errand-boys, were framed; and to such a pitch of frenzy was this abhorrence of Wood's halfpence carried, that instances occurred of persons seeking to avoid the odium, if not the actual danger, consequent upon an imputation of sharing even indirectly, and in the most trifling circumstance, in the execution of the project, by publishing disclaimers in the way of advertisements, in the public journals. The following is a curious sample.

"ADVERTISEMENT."

"Whereas I, Thomas Handy, of Meath Street, Dublin, did receive by the last packet, from a person in London, to whom I am an entire stranger, bills of lading for eleven casks of Wood's halfpence, shipped at Bristol, and consigned to me by the said person on his own proper account, of which I had not the least notice, until I received the said bills of lading.

"Now I, the said Thomas Handy, being highly sensible of the duty and regard which every honest man owes to his country and to his fellow-subjects, do hereby declare, that I will not be concerned, directly or indirectly, in entering, landing importing, receiving, or uttering any of the said Wood's halfpence; for that I am fully convinced, from the addresses of both houses of parliament, as otherwise, that the importing and uttering the said halfpence will be destructive to this nation, and prejudicial to his Majesty's revenue.

"And of this my resolution, I gave notice by letter to the person who sent me the bills of lading, the very day I received them, and have sent back the said bills to him.

"THO. HANDY.

"Dublin, 29th August, 1724."

The labours of Swift were not confined to the production of these masterly compositions, whose influence had made the people of Ireland abhor and denounce the proposed measure as a ruinous blow to the incipient national prosperity, but with that indefatigable zeal which delights to do thoroughly whatever it has undertaken, he gave the direction and the strength of his genius, even to the minutest details of the great machinery of agitation which he was the first to move. With a rapid fertility, scarcely, if ever, matched, he supplied the street hawkers with ballads, lampoons and satires, in prose and in verse, innumerable. All levelled against the project and the projector, with the utmost severity of biting sarcasm, and seasoned with that pungent personal ridicule, which finds a ready and a sure response in the liking and applause of the lower orders; and trifling, and perhaps unworthy as this condescension of Swift may appear in the eye of the hasty reader, to the observation of the reflecting, it affords an object of unqualified admiration. It was necessary, for the complete success of the movement which he directed, that the aroused national excitement should be universal, and the national mind was therefore to be appealed to through every channel, each class was to be addressed in its appropriate language; besides, it is not enough to convince the reason-an average man, before he will act with bold decision, must be assured of sympathy; and in order to produce an epidemic and peculiar political temper in a country, much more than lucid and unanswerable argument is necessary. That men are creatures of habit is a trite observation, but one rarely indeed remembered in politics. There is in every human mind a little place devoted to the reception of prejudices, those inevitable results of all education. A certain unoccupied corner, in which crawl and batten those reptiles whose existence we forget, but who nevertheless, while we take no note, plunder and befoul

the stores of the mind; but so it is that men cannot live without these companions, and where prejudices are hostile to the views of a politician, he must not content himself with showing their usurpations and their nastiness, for, even though he procure their temporary expulsion, they will return again, unless he supply their place with others, strong enough to devour their predecessors. To create these new prejudices is not the least difficult task of the man of policy, and to make a new principle generally accepted, the convincing of the reason is but the first step. Its antagonists cannot be at once removed; they must be, as it were, worn away by a process of mental trituration; and having traced with the finger of reason the character of his favourite maxim upon the adamantine mind, he must then, with long laborious hammering and chisseling, cut there in graven letters, the truth which will abide. Swift possessed that wisdom which ever distinguishes the true statesman from the political quacksalver. In all his calculations he regarded the materials upon which he was to work-human minds-as things not to be moved and shifted from place to place, by the hand of the player, like the pieces on a chess-board, but as possessed of wills, prejudices, motives and weaknesses, as well as of reason; and containing within them innumerable forces, a consideration of all which make the correction by which the operation of political mechanism is to be calculated. The writings and measures of Swift are a beautiful illustration of a consistent and grandly triumphant adherence to the practice of this political truth; and the history of his political agency is to that theorizing flippancy which would treat the subjects of government not as men, but as cast-iron wheels, an eternal pattern and reproof.

Having thus called into loud and universal tumult the long slumbering spirit of the country, Swift saw that the hour was come when he might, with an assurance of sympathy, speak of the real principle at issue, the independence of the Irish parliament and the honour of his country, and in the succeeding letters of the Drapier, the mere cominercial arguments to which the reasoning of the first three letters is exclusively confined, are completely thrown aside,

and the proposition of Ireland's independence asserted in its boldest form, and with the eloquence of indignant and fearless enthusiasm.

The pamphlet which, three months before, would have filled even the friends of the maxims which it asserted with dismay and fearful forebodings of dire consequences, alike to the cause and the indiscreet zealot who pleaded it, was now hailed with the welcome of a nation's rapture and applause. In thus grasping, as it were, by the throat, the political villainy which had so long cajoled and crushed down his country, the daring champion not only stimulated the courage of his adherents, but aroused the terrors of the liberal tyrant-the Whig Walpole. Carteret, who had been suspected by the minister of having fomented the excitement against the introduction of Wood's half-pence, and who had in reality furnished the history of the manner in which the patent had been procured, was, with a malicious ingenuity, forced by the premier into the centre of those difficulties and embarrassments which he had intended for others, and now, at the very crisis of the struggle, was despatched to Ireland in the character of viceroy, to curb that agitation and to disappoint those hopes which he had helped to excite. The first act of the new Lord Lieutenant was to imprison Harding, the printer of the Drapier's Letters, and to proclaim a reward of £300 for the detection of the author of the fourth and most offensive of these productions. A bill of indictment was ordered to be prepared against the publisher; and upon the day previous to that on which the bill was to be presented, Swift printed and circulated among the members of the panel, a short paper called, "Seasonable Advice to the Grand Jury," &c. It is not probable, however, that they required any stimulant to urge them to that course which they unanimously pursued, and with a consciousness that the gaze of the empire was fixed upon them, and that a great and a good cause depended on their firmness and decision, they threw out the bills. This act of conscience and manhood did not fail to enrage the iniquitous and uncompromising minister of faction-Chief Justice Whitshed-whom we have already mentioned, and who presided upon this occasion, and in a paroxysm of impo

tent and ungovernable rage he dissolved the panel. They had done their duty, and the applause of a grateful country covered them with honour. The unconstitutional insolence of the judge, however well meant for the interests of his party, only served to heighten the indignation and to confirm the resolution of those whom it was meant to terrify and to subdue-and the dangers which seemed to gather more closely and darkly over the head of Swift, as the contest became more defined in its objects and inveterate in its spirit, so far from dismaying or paralyzing the confidence of his heart, only roused from its depth all the dauntless and indomitable courage of his nature. One of the most striking and inspiring of the courageous acts of Swift is finely given by Sheridan: "The day after the proclamation was issued out against the Drapier, there was a full levee at the castle. The Lord Lieutenant was going round the circle, when Swift abruptly entered the chamber, and pushing his way through the crowd, never stopped till he got within the circle, where, with marks of the highest indignation in his countenance, he addressed the Lord Lieutenant with the voice of a Stentor, that re-echoed through the room, So, my Lord Lieutenant, this is a glorious exploit that you performed yesterday, in issuing a proclamation against a poor shopkeeper, whose only crime is an honest endeavour to save his country from ruin. You have given a noble specimen of what this devoted nation is to hope for, from your government. I suppose you expect a statue of copper will be erected to you for this service done to Wood.' He then went on for a long time inveighing in the bitterest terms against the patent, and displaying in the strongest colours all the fatal consequences of introducing that execrable coin. The whole assembly were struck mute with wonder at this unprecedented scene. The titled slaves, and vassals of power, felt, and shrunk into their own littleness, in the presence of this man of mind. For some time a profound silence ensued. When Lord Carteret, who had listened with great composure to the whole speech, made this fine reply, in a line of Virgil's: *Res duræ, et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri.'

"The whole assembly was struck with the beauty of this quotation, and the levee broke up in good humoursome extolling the magnanimity of Swift to the skies, and all delighted with the ingenuity of the Lord Lieutenant's answer.

Another instance of the bold and decisive measures which sprung from the proud ardour and defiance of his character, is also vividly sketched by the pen of Sheridan: "During the publication of the Drapier's Letters, Swift took great pains to conceal himself from being known as the author. The only persons in the secret were Robert Blakely, his butler, whom he employed as his amanuensis, and Dr. Sheridan. As Robert was not the most accurate transcriber, the copies were always delivered by him to the Doctor, in order to their being corrected, and fitted for the press, by whom they were conveyed to the printer in such a way as to prevent a possibility of discovery. It happened that Robert Blakely, the very evening of the day on which the proclamation was issued, offering a reward of £300 for discovering the author of the Drapier's fourth letter, had staid out later than usual without his master's leave. The Dean ordered the door to be locked at the accustomed hour, and shut him out. The next morning the poor fellow appeared before him with marks of great contrition; when Swift would listen to none of his excuses, but abusing him outrageously, bid him strip off all his livery, and quit his house that moment. What-you villain,' said he, 'is it because I am in your power, you dare take these liberties? Get out of my house, you scoundrel, and receive the reward of your treachery.' Mrs. Johnson, who was at the deanery, and greatly alarmed at this scene, immediately despatched a messenger to Dr. Sheridan, to come and try to make up matters. Upon his arrival he found Robert walking about the hall in great agitation, and shedding abundance of tears; inquiring into the cause of this, he was told that his master had just discharged him. The Doctor bade him be of good cheer, for he would undertake to pacify the Dean, and that he should still be continued in his place. 'That is not what vexes me,' replied the honest creature; 'to be sure I should

6

be very sorry to leave so good a master; but what grieves me to the soul is, that my master should have so bad an opinion of me, as to suppose me capable of betraying him for any reward whatever.' When this was told to the Dean, struck with the generosity of such a sentiment in one of his low sphere, he immediately pardoned him, and restored him to favour. He also took the first opportunity in his powor of rewarding this man for his fidelity. The place of Verger to the Cathedral soon after becoming vacant, Swift called Robert to him, and asked him if he had any clothes of his own that were not a livery; to which the other replying in the affirmative, he desired him immediately to strip off his livery and put on those clothes. The poor fellow, quite astonished, begged to know what crime he had committed, that he should be discharged. Well-do as I ordered you,' said Swift. When he returned in his new dress, the Dean called the other servants into the room, and told them they were no longer to consider him as their fellow-servant Robert, but as Mr. Blakely, Verger of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which place he had bestowed on him as a reward for his faithful services. The grateful creature poured forth a thousand blessings on him, and begged as the greatest favour he could confer on him, that he might still be continued in the same station without fee or reward, as he was sure no one could give such satisfaction to his master in the discharge of it as himself.

L

As

he was an excellent servant, and was accustomed to all Swift's peculiarities, the proposal could not but be very acceptable to the Dean; and Mr. Blakely accordingly continued to officiate in that capacity for some time, as a volunteer, without any of the badges of servitude. But the master was too liberal to accept the generous proposal made by the servant; for, though he paid him no wages, he took care, by handsome presents, to make him a full equivalent.'

The new grand jury summoned to supply the place of that which had been so arbitrarily dissolved, so far from regarding the dissolution of the preceding one as a moral lesson to be implicitly obeyed---so far from seeking favour from the great by the desertion of their country---so far from yielding to the presence of intimidation, or to the hopes of a bribe---the service either

of sordid fear or of avarice, presented thus:

"The Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County of the City of Dublin.

"Whereas several great quantities of base metal, coined, commonly called Wood's half-pence, have been brought into the port of Dublin, and lodged in several houses in this city, with an intention to make them pass clandestinely among his Majesty's subjects of this kingdom, notwithstanding the Addresses of both Houses of Parliament, and the Privy-Council, and most of the Corporations of this City against the said coin: and whereas his Majesty has been graciously pleased to leave his loyal subjects of this kingdom at liberty to take or refuse the said halfpence:

"We, the Grand Jury of the County of the City of Dublin, this Michaelmas Term, 1724, having entirely at heart his Majesty's interest, and the welfare of our country and being thoroughly sensible of the great discouragements which trade hath suffered by the apprehensions of the said coin, whereof we have already felt the dismal effects, and that the currency thereof will inevitably tend to the great diminution of his Majesty's revenue, and the ruin of us and our posterity, do present all such persons as have attempted, or shall endeavour by fraud, or otherwise, to impose the said half-pence upon us, contrary to his Majesty's most gracious intentions, as enemies to his Majesty's Government, and to the safety, peace, and welfare of all his Majesty's subjects of this kingdom; whose affections have been so eminently distinguished by their zeal to his illustrious family, before his happy accession to the throne, and by their continued loyalty ever since.

"As we do with all just gratitude acknowledge the services of all such patriots as have been eminently zealous for the interests of his Majesty and this country, in detecting the fraudulent imposition of the said Wood, and preventing the passing of his base coin, so we do, at the same time, declare our abhorrence and detestation of all reflections on his Majesty and his Government; and that we are ready, with our lives and fortunes, to defend his most sacred Majesty against the Pretender, and all his Majesty's open and secret enemies, both at home and abroad.

"Given under our hands, &c."

Other juries followed the brave example thus set before them, and the Government were at length forced to

see that unless they were prepared to compel obedience by an appeal to the doubtful and bloody issue of a civil war their cause was desperate--the patent was recalled, and the Drapier triumphed.

Now, in the glorious moment of victory, did the nation single out the man who had so wisely and so bravely fought the good fight. The irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm which hailed him wherever he appeared, the admiration and devotion of the country for whose sake he had hazarded every risk, showed him that Irishmen could be grateful as his services had been unequalled. His popularity was without precedent. Portraits of the Drapier appeared in every window, and upon almost every substance, prints, medals, even handkerchiefs were all made to carry his likeness; his image became a favourite sign; and a club, called by his name, was formed, where all honour was paid to his principles and achievements. Whenever he stirred abroad he was welcomed by the loud applause of millions;

the anniversary of his birth was observed as a day of public rejoicing. When he visited the provincial towns of his country, his reception was enthusiastic and reverent as would have been that of a monarch; and when he returned, after a considerable absence, to his native city, it poured forth all its tide of population to do him heartfelt honour---and amid the waiving of banners, the gratulations of the great, the thundering shouts of the mighty multitude, who greeted him as their liberator, the blaze of bonfires, and the loud general pealing of the city bells, to conduct the Drapier to his home. Nor did this popularity subside with the first warm impulse which accompanied his victory---long after the darkness of mental night had closed over him for ever, when the applause of the populace could awaken no echo in his mind, the carriage which bore the wreck of the venerable patriot of Ireland, was followed by the acclamations and the blessings of grateful thousands.

WHILE the revolutionary armies of France were impressing upon a thousand bloody fields, the sad memorials of their progress, it was pronounced by an illustrious authority, that the world's next great contest would be a war of PRINCIPLES. We live in the fulfilment of the prediction. Our lot is cast amidst strife, and discord, and division. Unbloody, but relentless, conflicts are waging all around us; and these "plus quam civilia bella" are wars of principle. The divisions into which society is separated are marshalled under their leaders, distinguished by peculiar watch-words, and carry inscribed upon their banners the principles which form the bond of their association. Appeals which would have summoned our fathers to the field, impel us to take up our pens; to vote at an election; to be the inflicters or the sufferers of a popular oration. A single word kindles

into a national conflagration, which terminates in the extinction of tithes. A British House of Commons is content to inflict upon the empire the real curse of a government, despised at home, and disgraced abroad, in order to vindicate a theoretic principle of appropriation, which the ministerial leader himself confessed to be, practically inapplicable and impossible. From such angry conflicts about principles, whose nature, too often, the combatants themselves so little apprehend, we are recalled, by an irresistible suggestion, to the ages when Europe was rent asunder by the memorable war of abstract ideas, and nations hastened to the field to demonstrate a theory of universals!

In this conflict of opinion, every thinking man must take his part. We do not require the threatened penalty of the Spartan legislator to deter us