although I happened to be dropped here, and was a year old before I left it, and, to my sorrow, did not die before I came back to it again. I am extremely glad of the felicity you have in your alliances, and desire to present my most humble respects to my Lady Oxford, and your daughter, the Duchess.

As to the History it is only of affairs which I know very well, and had all the advantages possible to know, when you were, in some sort, but a lad. One great design of it is, to do justice to the Ministry at that time, and to refute all objections against them, as if they had a design of bringing in Popery and the Pretender; and, farther, to demonstrate that the present Settlement of the Crown was chiefly owing to my Lord, your father.1 I can never expect to see England; I am now too old and too sickly, added to almost a perpetual deafness and giddiness. I live a most domestic life. I want nothing that is necessary; but I am in a cursed, factious, oppressed, miserable country, not made so by Nature, but by the slavish, hellish, principles of an execrable, prevailing faction in it.

Farewell, my Lord. I have tired you and myself. I desire again to present my most humble respects to my Lady Oxford, and the Duchess, your daughter. Pray God preserve you long and happy! I shall diligently inquire into your conduct from those who will tell me. You have hitherto continued right; let me hear that you persevere so. Your task will not be long, for I am not in a condition of health or time to trouble this world [long], and I am heartily weary of it already; and so should be in England, which I hear is full as corrupt as this poor enslaved country. I am, with the truest love and respect, &c.

1 In reply to all this confident assertion, it can only be answered, that Swift, in this case, could not have been admitted into the secret counsels of the Ministry.

APOLOGIST OF THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 267

TO MR LEWIS,1

July 23, 1737.

While any of those who used to write to me were alive, I always inquired after you. But, since your Secretaryship in the Queen's time, I believed you were so glutted with the office, that you had not patience to venture on a letter to an absent, useless acquaintance; and I find I owe yours to my Lord Oxford.

The History you mention was written above a year before the Queen's death. I left it with the Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke, when I first came over to take the Deanery. I returned in less than a month; but the Ministry could not agree about printing it. It was to conclude with the Peace. I staid in London above nine months; but, not being able to reconcile the quarrels between these two, I went to a friend in Berkshire, and, on the Queen's death, came here for good and all. I am confident you read that History, as this Lord Oxford did, as he owns in his two letters, the last of which reached me not above ten days ago. You know, on the Queen's death, how the Peace and all proceedings were universally condemned. This I knew would be done, and the chief cause of my writing was, not to let such a Queen and Ministry be under such a load of infamy, or posterity be so ill-informed, &c.

Lord Oxford is in the wrong to be in pain about his father's character, or his proceedings in his Ministry; which is so drawn that his greatest admirers will rather censure me for partiality. Neither can he tell me anything material out of his Papers, which I was not then informed of; nor do I know anybody but yourself who could give me more light than what I then

A great favourite of Harley's, and intimate friend of Swift during tho period 1710-14.

received. For I remember I often consulted with you, and took memorials of many important particulars which you told me, as I did of others, for four years together. I can find no way to have the original delivered to Lord Oxford or to you; for the person who has it will not part it out of his hands, but, I believe, would be contented to let it be read to either of you, if it could be done without letting it out of his hands,1 although, perhaps, that may be too late. If my health would have permitted me, for some years past, to have ventured as far as London, I would have satisfied both my Lord and you. I believe you know that Lord Bolingbroke is now busy in France, writing the History of his Own Time; and how much he grew to hate the Treasurer you know too well, and I know how much Lord Bolingbroke hates his very memory. This is what the present Lord Oxford should be in most pain at, not about me.

I have had my share of affliction sufficient, in the loss of Dr. Arbuthnot, and poor Gay, and others 2; and I heartily pity poor Lord Masham. I would fain know whether his son be a valuable young man; because I much dislike his education. When I was last among you, Sir William Wyndham was in a bad state of health. I always loved him, and I rejoice to hear from you the figure he makes. But I know so little of what passes, that I never heard of Lady Blandford, his present wife. Lord Bathurst used to write to me, but has dropped it some years. Pray, is Charles Ford yet alive? for he has dropped me, too; or, perhaps, my illness has hindered me from provoking his remembrance, for I have been long in a very bad condition. My deafness, which used to be occasional, and for a short time, has

1 As a little before this period the great abilities of Dr. Swift had begun to fail, he had, in order to gratify some of his acquaintances, called for the History once or twice out of his friend's hands, and lent it abroad: by which means parts of the contents were whispered about the town, and several had pretended to have read it, who, perhaps, had not seen one line of it.Deane Swift.

Arbuthnot died in Feb., 1735, Gay in Dec., 1732.

stuck by me now several months, without intermission; so that I am unfit for any conversation, except one or two Stentors of either sex, and my old giddiness is likewise become chronical, although not in equal violence with my former short fits.

I was never so much deceived in any Scot as that execrable Lord K-1 whom I loved extremely, and now detest beyond expression. You say so little of yourself, that I know not whether you are in health or in sickness, only that you lead a mere animal life, which, with nine parts in ten, is a sign of health. I find you have not, like me, lost your memory; nor, I hope, your sense of hearing, which is the greatest loss of any, and more comfortless than even being blind. I mean, in the article of company. Writing no longer amuses me, for I can. not think. I dine constantly at home, in my chamber, with a grave houskeeper, whom I call Sir Robert, and sometimes receive one or two friends, and a female cousin, with strong, high, tenor voices.2

1 Lord Kinnoul, whose pecuniary embarrassments had involved, it would seem, Lord Oxford. He is often mentioned with regard in the Journal.-S.

In an interesting letter of Lewis, of April, 1738, first published by Scott, Harley's old confidant sends his friend the criticisms of Lord Oxford and two or three other Tory friends (unnamed), upon the History. As for the part relating to the negociations for Peace, in London and Utrecht, "they admire it exceedingly, and declare they never saw that, or any other transaction, drawn up with so much perspicuity, or in a style so entertaining and instruc tive to the reader, in every respect. . . . But I should be wanting in the sincerity of a friend," he adds, "if I did not tell you plainly, that it was the unanimous opinion of the company a great deal of the first part should be retracted, and many things altered." Objections, severally, are raised to the account of the establishment of the South Sea Company-" for no part of the debt, then unprovided for, was paid; however, the advantages arising to the public," they think, "were very considerable : for, instead of paying for all provisions cent. per cent. dearer than the common market price, as we did in Lord Godolphin's times, the credit of the public was immediately restored; and, by means of this scheme, put upon as good a footing as the best private security";-to the disparagement of the Duke of Marlborough's personal courage and bravery, upon which the brief comment is: "The D- of M—'s courage not to be called in question" ;—and the mere report of a plot on the part of Prince Eugene to assassinate Harley. "The projected design of an assassination they believe true, but that a matter of so high a nature

To MR. ALDERMAN BARBER.

August 8, 1738. I have received yours of July 27th; and two days ago had a letter from Mr. Pope, with a dozen lines from my Lord Bolingbroke, who tells me he is just going to France and, I suppose, designs to continue there as long as he lives. I am sorry he is under the necessity of selling Dawley. Pray let me know whether he be tolerably easy in his fortunes; for he has these several years lived very expensively. Is his lady still alive? And has he still a country-house, and an estate of hers to live on? I should be glad to live so long as to see his History of His Own Times, which would be a work very worthy of his Lordship, and will be a defence of that Ministry, and a justifica tion of our late glorious Queen, against the malice, ignorance, falsehood, and stupidity of our present times and managers.

I very much like Mr. Pope's last poem, entitled “MDCCXXXVIII.," called Dialogue II.1 But I live so obscurely, and know so little of what passes in London, that I cannot know the names of persons and things by initial letters. I am very glad to hear that the Duke of Ormond lives so well at ease and ought not to be asserted without exhibiting the proofs." The Committee of Censors, also, strongly advise modification of the characters of the enemy who figure in the History-for "nothing could save the author's printer and publishers from some grievous punishment." Lewis adds:-"What I have to say from myself is, that there were persons in the company, to whose judg. ment I should pay entire deference. I concurred in the same opinion with them from the bottom of my heart; and therefore conjure you, as you value your fame as an author, and the honour of those who were the actors in the important affairs that make the subject of your History, and as you would preserve the liberty of your person, and enjoyment of your for. tune, you will not suffer this work to go to the Press without making some, or all, of the amendments proposed. I am, my dear Dean, most sincerely and affectionately your, E. L."

Whether from infirmity, or from not being shaken in his own convictions, or from whatever reason, none of these criticisms induced Swift to make any alterations; and, when the Narrative came out, after his death, it was found to have beem unrevised.

1 Epilogue to the Satires.