The great question which divided England during the last four years of Anne's reign was the continuance of the war, and on this question Lord Macaulay says, "The Tories were in the right and the Whigs in the wrong" (v. 679).

Properly it was a national and not a party question; but, as we have seen in more recent instances, it suited the purpose of both sides to make it a question of party. The Whigs, backed by the mercantile interest and the Dissenters, were eager for the continuance of the war. The

Tories, supported by the landed interest and the Church, were the advocates for peace. His attachment to the Church and his friendship for Harley threw Swift into the ranks of the Tories. He became the most powerful auxiliary of Harley and Bolingbroke, and, by the influence exercised by his writings on public opinion, contributed perhaps more than any other man to the success of their policy, to the termination of the war, and to the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht. But in thus acting he never abandoned those constitutional principles which he had advocated in his earlier writings, and his conduct was throughout consistent with the opinions he had avowed to Somers during the time of his intimacy with the leading Whigs. The Whigs themselves acted very differently. They turned their backs on all their former professions, betrayed their friends the Dissenters, and purchased the support of the Tory Lord Nottingham by agreeing to assist him in passing the bill against occasional conformity which they had themselves defeated only a few years before. "This intolerant bill, carried through the House of Lords by the active assistance of the Whigs, was received with enthusiasm by the Tory majority in the House of Commons,

and quickly passed into a law."* It remained for years a disgrace to the statute-book. In pursuance of this base bargain, the resolution against the peace was moved in the House of Lords by Lord Nottingham, and carried by a small majority. Swift, writing to Dr Sterne on the 29th of December 1711, says :

"You know what an unexpected thing fell out the first day of the session by the caprice, discontent, or some worse motive of the Earl of Nottingham. In above twenty years that I have known something of Courts I never observed so many odd, dark, unaccountable circumstances in any public affair. A majority against the Court, carried by five or six depending lords, who owed the best part of their bread to pensions from the Court, and who were told by the public enemy that what they did would be pleasing to the Queen, though it was openly head.... A lord, who had been so far levelled against the first minister's always a Tory as often to be thought in the Pretender's interest, giving his vote for the ruin of all his old friends, caressed by those Whigs who hated and abhorred him-the Whigs all chiming in with a bill against occasional conformity; and the very Dissenting ministers agreeing to it, for reasons that nobody alive can tell. A resolution of breaking the treaty of peace without any possible scheme for continuing the war; and all this owing to a doubtfulness or inconstancy in one certain quarter, which at this distance I dare not describe.”—(Swift to Sterne, Dec. 29, 1711, xviii. 142.)

The history of this transaction is told with admirable humour by Arbuthnot in his 'History of John Bull,' chap. xiii., where he relates how "Jack hanged himself up by the persuasion of his friends, who broke their word, and left his neck in the noose."

The strong attachment to the Church which induced Swift to advocate the exclusion of all but members of that Church from the

privileges of citizenship, appears to a politician of the present day inconsistent with his love of liberty and his Whig principles; but it would be well to remember, before admitting the charge of "apostasy," that the Achilles of the Liberals has displayed the same apparent inconsistency to even a greater extent; and, in obedience to what no doubt appeared to him the exigencies of the times, has struck down the very institution which in earlier years he considered so closely united with the State that they could not be severed without destroying the vitality of both.

There remains the charge founded on the coarseness which disfigures much of the writings of Swift. That there is a sound foundation for this charge, it is impossible to deny. But it must be remembered on his behalf that no line ever fell from his pen calculated to arouse licentious passion or to weaken the bonds of morality. In an age when 'The New Atalantis' was the fashionable novel,* when Congreve and Vanbrugh were the most popular of dramatists, and Prior was read by young ladies as Tennyson is now, this should be remembered to his credit. Swift's offence consisted not in licentiousness, but in grossness and indecency. Decency is the child of passion, and of passion Swift knew nothing. In his desire to expose the hideousness of vice, he overshoots his mark, and excites disgust more at his treatment of the disease than at the disease itself. The prescription is so nauseous that it is rejected, and fails of its object. But it should

not be forgotten how great a change in manners has been taking place year after year, ever since Dioneo was required to tell his stories at the end of the day in order that Philomena and the other ladies might, if they chose, withdraw (a kind of conscience clause, of which they seem never to have availed themselves); and the Miller, the Sumpner, and the Reeve told their tales unreproved by the Prioress or the Nun. There are stage directions for the conduct of the actors in Ben Jonson's plays which would make the hair of the Lord Chamberlain stand on end. The heroines of Shakespeare are the types of female purity, yet they listen without disapproval to what in the present day would be considered the most offensive ribaldry. In the last century 'Roderick Random' was the most popular of novels, yet it contains passages which we have no hesitation in saying are more objectionable than any that can be found in the writings of Swift; and, coming still nearer to our own time, Gray's

nent was his attachment to Harley. Bound to him by ties of gratitude on behalf of his Church, he steadily refused to be placed under personal obligation, and always asserted that proud independence which is essential to genuine friendship.

During the quarrel between Harley and Bolingbroke, Swift maintained his friendly relations with both, and used every endeavour to effect a reconciliation. When Bolingbroke, assisted by the intrigues of Lady Masham, had succeeded in displacing his rival, his first object was if possible to secure the ad

hesion of Swift: he wrote to him in the warmest terms-he addressed every argument that was likely to be of avail. He held out prospects of brilliant preferment.* Lady Masham implored him to remain, in compassion for the Queen (xviii. 495). Swift's reply may be gathered from his letter to Vanessa:

"I am wrote to earnestly by somebody to come to town and join with those people now in power; but I will not do it. Say nothing of this but guess the person. I told Lord Oxford I would go with him when he was out, and now he begs it of me I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his faults, as he was a minister of state, but you know his personal kindness to me was excessive. He distinguished and chose me above all other men whilst he was great, and his letter to me the other day was the most moving imaginable."-(xviii. 506.)

says

"To Swift's immortal honour," Sir Walter Scott, "he paused not a

moment, but wrote to solicit a renewal of his licence for absence, then on the point of expiring-not that he might share the triumph and prospects to which he was invited by the royal favourite and the new prime minister, but in order to accompany his beloved friend and patron to neglect and seclusion." (Scott's Life of Swift, 309.)

It is a remarkable fact, and a striking proof not only of the independence and honesty but of the amiable and affectionate character of Swift, that although during the course of this bitter quarrel he never scrupled to tell disagreeable truths in plain language to both the combatants, he never forfeited the esteem or affection of either.

The death of the Queen soon Bolchanged the aspect of affairs. ingbroke's triumph lasted less than a week. The Whigs seized the reins of government, and proceeded to wreak their vengeance after the fashion of the day. Ormond and Bolingbroke fled. Harley remained to abide the storm, and was thrown into prison. Mrs Masham was succeeded in her backstairs' influence by others as servile and unprincipled and more disreputable, and Swift retired to Ireland, where, until the dark cloud which obscured his closing years descended upon him, his time was passed in vindicating the wrongs of his country, in a voluminous correspondence with his distant friends, in the production and correction of works which will last as long as the English language, and in the practice of his favourite maxim of "vive la bagatelle" in the society of Sheridan and other men of congenial habits and pursuits.

"On a changé tout cela," and

much for the better. When Mr Gladstone is succeeded by Mr Disraeli, he is not incarcerated in the Tower, but passing Traitor's Gate in perfect safety proceeds a little farther down the river, and makes a speech to admiring thousands on Blackheath. Even Mr Lowe's head is safe from the vengeance of deputations whom he has snubbed into desperation, and foes whom he has stung to madness by his sarcasms; and he may ride his bicycle along the Strand without any risk of halters being thrown at him, if he chooses to brave the other dangers attendant on such an undertaking.

Besides Harley and St John, Swift numbered amongst his friends the decorous Addison, the sensitive plant Pope, "kind Arbuthnot," who "knew his art but not his trade," and whose figure looks out from the distinguished group with a mixed expression of wit, goodhumour, sham misanthropy, and real benevolence-the knight-errant Peterborough, Ormond, Atterbury, Gay, Prior, and a host of others, led by careless, learned, witty, af fectionate, henpecked Sheridan, and brought up in the rear by "honest Cromwell in red breeches."

All these united in their love and admiration for Swift. They quarrelled amongst themselves. Harley and St John from hollow friends became bitter foes; Addison insulted Pope, and Pope lampooned Addison; but, with the exception of the short suspension of intimacy which arose from the party-feeling of Addison, and disappeared after Swift's removal to Ireland,* not one of these

men

ever wavered in his attachment to Swift. When Ormond and Bolingbroke were in exile, it was from the friendship of Swift that their wives sought comfort and consolation. When Harley's head

66

was in peril, it was Swift who shared his retirement, and would have shared his prison. Is it consistent with human nature that the man so loved and honoured, and who had inspired such warm and devoted attachment in the hearts of men so various and so distinguished, should have had a heart burning with hatred against the whole human race;" and that it should be left to Macaulay, Jeffrey, Thackeray, and Lord Mahon, to discover, more than a century after his death, that he was an epitome of everything that is vile and contemptible in human nature?

We have now gone, one by one, through all the charges that have been brought against Swift; and we cannot conclude this paper better than in the words of Dr Delany, a man of high character and pure life, who knew Swift well, and who sums up his observations as follows:

"All this considered, the character of his [Swift's] life will appear like that of his writings; they will both bear to be reconsidered and re-examined with the utmost attention; and will always discover new beauties and They will bear to be considered as the excellences upon every examination. sun, in which the brightness will hide the blemishes; and whenever petulant ignorance, pride, malice, malignity, or envy interposes to cloud or sully his fame, I will take upon me to pronounce that the eclipse will not last long.

To conclude. No man ever deserved better of any country than Swift did of his. A steady, persevering, inflexible friend; a wise, a watchful, and a faithful counsellor under many severe trials and bitter provocations, to the manifest hazard of both

his liberty and fortune.

"He lived a blessing, he died a benefactor, and his name will ever live an honour, to Ireland."

I CAN fancy a supercilious reader looking scornfully at this title and sternly putting to me the very proper question-" And pray, who are you that your childhood should be of importance to any one? Tell us your name, that we may see whether it will be worth our while to read you. Are you the Earl of Beaconsfield, about to let the world see what manner of sports and studies best fit a child to grow up into the successful novelist, politician, and Premier? Or (for we see a few verses on some of your later pages) are you the poet-laureate, willing to disclose to a circle of breathless admirers how the genius (born, as we all know, not made) first becomes conscious of itself? We have heard that the child is father to the man; if you will tell us what manner of man you now are, we shall know whether it is worth our while to make the acquaintance of the young author of your present existence." Alas! I have no satisfactory answer to give to any such haughty questioner. I am not the late leader of the House of Commons; far from that, I have not even a seat in Parliament, and see no great chance at present of obtaining one. And I am certainly not Tennyson: should I (as I partly intend) indulge a sympathising circle with extracts from my early poems, no further disclaimer of all relation to the author of 'In Memoriam' and the 'Idylls' could possibly be required from me. In fact, I am nobody whose name can bespeak attention a person of whom you, my discouraging and unwilling listener, never heard before. I claim a hearing from you on a lower but a wider ground than that of having climbed up any of

VOL. CXX.-NO. DCCXXXIII.

the dizzy eminences of fame-the ground of being what you yourself probably are, and therefore having more in common with you than celebrated personages can

more

have, an undistinguished individual. In your case as in mine (if I may say so without offence), the "child" has not proved the "father" of a great man. Let me hope for you-what is more than I can say for myself that he has done better than that, and been the father of a man able and willing to take the poet's advice

"Be good, my friend, and let who will be clever;

Do noble things, not dream them, all day long;

So making life, death, and that vast For Ever,

One grand, sweet song."

Such is the man whom I would invite to be my only, because he alone would be my compassionate, listener, were I about (following Keble's mournful expansion Wordsworth's idea into

of

"The man seems following still the funeral of the boy "-)

to take my stand in mourning robes beside the grave of my childhood, and to pronounce a solemn funeral oration over that strange little being which once was myself. Did I mean to unveil infantine remorse and anguish as real and as keen as any of the sorrows of maturer years, to revel once more in imagination amid the flowers of vanished springs, to shudder again in thought as the chill touch of death thrilled me for the first time, one such hearer as I am venturing to imagine you to be would be enough, perhaps at last too much. But I am engaged in no such task to-day, and all the

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