tented with this. In the memorial announcing the remission to the Irish bishops, special mention was made of the great energy and devotion shown in the matter by Dr. Swift-a subtle flattery by which Swift was greatly delighted.

"I believe never anything was compassed so soon," says the Journal, "and purely done by my personal credit with Mr. Harley, who is so excessively obliging, that I know not what to make of it, unless to show the rascals of the other party that they used a man unworthily who had deserved them better." St. John, the secretary of state, who, "used me with all the kindness imaginable," Swift was not able to meet till November 11th. But by the end of October his alliance with the Tory ministry was fully sealed. In his "Memoir Relating to the Change in Queen Anne's Ministry in 1710," Swift gives a concise though not very straightforward account of the arrangement between them. When the affair of the first-fruits, he says, was completed, he paid Harley a visit to return thanks, and announced his intention of now returning to Ireland. Harley thereupon, says Swift, told me "He and his friends knew very well what useful things I had written against the principles of the late discarded faction,1 and that my personal esteem for several among them would not make me a favourer of their cause: that there was now entirely a new scene: that the queen was resolved to employ none but those who were friends to the Con

I

Referring to Swift's pamphlets, "The Sentiments of a Church of England Man," and the "Letter on the Sacramental Test." When accused of being a "Trimmer," Swift referred to them to show he had been a Tory in 1708, and had already incurred the dislike of the Whigs because of his views. But it must be remembered that these works were published anonymously, so his statement is not worth much.

stitution of Church and State: that their great difficulty lay in the want of some good pen, to keep up the spirit raised in the people, to avert the principles and justify the proceedings of the new ministers." The minister went on to say that the writers now in present employ did not give complete satisfaction; would Swift therefore undertake the task? In return the Government would see that his services were properly acknowledged. Swift closed with the offer.

On November 2, 1710, he took charge of the ministerial organ, The Examiner. The Whigs had discarded him, but his hour of revenge had come. "Rot them for ungrateful dogs," he wrote in his Journal. "I will make them repent their usage (of me) before I leave this place."

On the morality of Swift's desertion from the Whigs to the Tories much needless comment has been written. It is enough to state here that a biographer's attitude should be strictly impersonal; and that he should confine himself to tracing the development of dominant characteristics, rather than to showing how certain actions fall above or below a certain moral standard. There is, moreover, no subject less worthy of discussion than the question of political consistency. To deal with the last century alone, it is impossible to name a single eminent statesman

Thomas Carlyle has thus stated the real object of biography: "What are your historical facts; still more your biographical? Wilt thou know a man, above all a man-kind, by stringing together beadrolls of what thou namest facts? The man is the spirit he worked in ; not what he did, but what he became. Facts are engraved hierograms, for which the fewest have the key, and then how your blockhead studies not their meaning; but simply whether they are well or ill-cut, what he calls moral or immoral!" ("Sartor Resartus," bk. ii. ch. x.). That great defect of English criticism, the attempt to find a moral in everything, is specially noticed by M. Taine in his "History of English Literature."

whose career is not marked by the most gross and glaring contradictions. What has been said against Swift may be said with greater truth against Bolingbroke, Walpole, both the Pitts, and Charles James Fox.

All, therefore, that requires to be asked is, What motives influenced Swift when he consented to become a Tory henchman? Regarding the earlier part of his conduct there is obviously no difficulty. He had laid it down as an axiom that a "Church of England man" was at perfect liberty to attach himself to whatever party seemed best likely to promote his own special interests. And he went from Somers to Harley solely because the latter was more friendly to the Church of England than the former. But the matter of the first-fruits was settled and done with in October, 1710. What, then, induced Swift to go beyond this point and turn himself into a close ally of the Tory party on matters disconnected with the Church? In accordance with the view taken of his character in the preceding pages, his motives must be regarded as purely personal.

Conscious of his strength, his ambition was to be able to shape the destinies of a nation; to be the adviser of its chosen statesmen and the companion of its most brilliant society; and to prove the folly of those who had committed the unpardonable crime of refusing to recognise his talents. All this and more the Tories were ready to give him in return for political support. Like Mirabeau, when he undertook the defence of the French monarchy against the Revolution, Swift was ready to join any party which consented to place its conduct in his hands. What use he made of political and social greatness the two ensuing chapters will endeavour to show.