THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION.
In the autumn of 1710 Swift was approaching the end of his forty-third
year. A man may well feel at forty-two that it is high time that a post
should have been assigned to him. Should an opportunity be then, and not
till then, put in his way, he feels that he is throwing for heavy stakes;
and that failure, if failure should follow, would be irretrievable. Swift
had been longing vainly for an opening. In the remarkable letter (of
April, 1722) from which I have quoted the anecdote of the lost fish, he
says that, "all my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only
for want of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a lord by
those who have an opinion of my parts; whether right or wrong is no great
matter; and so the reputation of wit or great learning does the office of
a blue riband or of a coach and six horses." The phrase betrays Swift's
scornful self-mockery; that inverted hypocrisy which led him to call his
motives by their worst names, and to disavow what he might have been sorry
to see denied by others. But, like all that Swift says of himself, it also
expresses a genuine conviction. Swift was ambitious, and his ambition
meant an absolute need of imposing his will upon others. He was a man born
to rule; not to affect thought, but to control conduct. He was therefore
unable to find full occupation, though he might seek occasional
distraction, in literary pursuits. Archbishop King, who had a strange
knack of irritating his correspondent--not, it seems, without
intention--annoyed Swift intensely in 1711 by advising him (most
superfluously) to get preferment, and with that view to write a serious
treatise upon some theological question. Swift, who was in the thick of
his great political struggle, answered that it was absurd to ask a man
floating at sea what he meant to do when he got ashore. "Let him get there
first and rest and dry himself, and then look about him." To find firm
footing amidst the welter of political intrigues, was Swift's first
object. Once landed in a deanery he might begin to think about writing;
but he never attempted, like many men in his position, to win preferment
through literary achievements. To a man of such a temperament, his career
must so far have been cruelly vexatious. We are generally forced to judge
of a man's life by a few leading incidents; and we may be disposed to
infer too hastily that the passions roused on those critical occasions
coloured the whole tenor of every-day existence. Doubtless Swift was not
always fretting over fruitless prospects. He was often eating his dinner
in peace and quiet, and even amusing himself with watching the Moor Park
rooks or the Laracor trout. Yet it is true that so far as a man's
happiness depends upon the consciousness of a satisfactory employment of
his faculties, whether with a view to glory or solid comfort, Swift had
abundant causes of discontent. The "conjured spirit" was still weaving
ropes of sand. For ten years he had been dependent upon Temple, and his
struggles to get upon his own legs had been fruitless: on Temple's death
he managed when past thirty to wring from fortune a position of bare
independence, not of satisfying activity, he had not gained a fulcrum from
which to move the world, but only a bare starting-point whence he might
continue to work. The promises from great men had come to nothing. He
might perhaps have realized them, could he have consented to be faithless
to his dearest convictions; the consciousness that he had so far
sacrificed his position to his principles gave him no comfort, though it
nourished his pride. His enforced reticence produced an irritation against
the ministers whom it had been intended to conciliate, which deepened into
bitter resentment for their neglect. The year and a half passed in Ireland
during 1709-10 was a period in which his day-dreams must have had a
background of disappointed hopes. "I stayed above half the time," he says,
"in one scurvy acre of ground, and I always left it with regret." He shut
himself up at Laracor, and nourished a growing indignation against the
party represented by Wharton.
Yet events were moving rapidly in England, and opening a new path for his
ambition. The Whigs were in full possession of power, though at the price
of a growing alienation of all who were weary of a never-ending war, or
hostile to the Whig policy in Church and State. The leaders, though warned
by Somers, fancied that they would strengthen their position by attacking
the defeated enemy. The prosecution of Sacheverell in the winter of
1709-10, if not directed by personal spite, was meant to intimidate the
high-flying Tories. It enabled the Whig leaders to indulge in a vast
quantity of admirable constitutional rhetoric; but it supplied the High
Church party with a martyr and a cry, and gave the needed impetus to the
growing discontent. The queen took heart to revolt against the
Marlboroughs; the Whig Ministry were turned out of office; Harley became
Chancellor of the Exchequer in August; and the parliament was dissolved in
September, 1710, to be replaced in November by one in which the Tories had
an overwhelming majority.
We are left to guess at the feelings with which Swift contemplated these
changes. Their effect upon his personal prospects was still problematical.
In spite of his wrathful retirement, there was no open breach between him
and the Whigs. He had no personal relations with the new possessors of
power. Harley and St. John, the two chiefs, were unknown to him. And,
according to his own statement, he started for England once more with
great reluctance in order again to take up the weary Firstfruits
negociation. Wharton, whose hostility had intercepted the proposed bounty,
went with his party, and was succeeded by the High Church Duke of Ormond.
The political aspects were propitious for a renewed application, and
Swift's previous employment pointed him out as the most desirable agent.
And now Swift suddenly comes into full light. For two or three years we
can trace his movements day by day; follow the development of his hopes
and fears; and see him more clearly than he could be seen by almost any of
his contemporaries. The famous _Journal to Stella_, a series of letters
written to Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, from September, 1710, till
April, 1713, is the main and central source of information. Before telling
the story, a word or two may be said of the nature of this document, one
of the most interesting that ever threw light upon the history of a man of
genius. The _Journal_ is one of the very few that were clearly written
without the faintest thought of publication. There is no indication of
any such intention in the _Journal to Stella_. It never occurred to Swift
that it could ever be seen by any but the persons primarily interested.
The journal rather shuns politics; they will not interest his
correspondent, and he is afraid of the post-office clerks--then and long
afterwards often employed as spies. Interviews with ministers have
scarcely more prominence than the petty incidents of his daily life. We
are told that he discussed business, but the discussion is not reported.
Much more is omitted which might have been of the highest interest. We
hear of meetings with Addison; not a phrase of Addison's is vouchsafed to
us; we go to the door of Harley or St. John; we get no distinct vision of
the men who were the centres of all observation. Nor, again, are there any
of those introspective passages which give to some journals the interest
of a confession. What, then, is the interest of the _Journal to Stella_?
One element of strange and singular fascination, to be considered
hereafter, is the prattle with his correspondent. For the rest, our
interest depends in great measure upon the reflections with which we must
ourselves clothe the bare skeleton of facts. In reading the _Journal to
Stella_ we may fancy ourselves waiting in a parliamentary lobby during an
excited debate. One of the chief actors hurries out at intervals; pours
out a kind of hasty bulletin; tells of some thrilling incident, or
indicates some threatening symptom; more frequently he seeks to relieve
his anxieties by indulging in a little personal gossip, and only
interjects such comments upon politics as can be compressed into a hasty
ejaculation, often, as may be supposed, of the imprecatory kind. Yet he
unconsciously betrays his hopes and fears; he is fresh from the thick of
the fight, and we perceive that his nerves are still quivering, and that
his phrases are glowing with the ardour of the struggle. Hopes and fears
are long since faded, and the struggle itself is now but a war of
phantoms. Yet with the help of the _Journal_ and contemporary documents,
we can revive for the moment the decaying images, and cheat ourselves into
the momentary persuasion that the fate of the world depends upon Harley's
success, as we now hold it to depend upon Mr. Gladstone's.
Swift reached London on September 7th, 1710; the political revolution was
in full action, though Parliament was not yet dissolved. The Whigs were
"ravished to see him;" they clutched at him, he says, like drowning men at
a twig, and the great men made him their "clumsy apologies." Godolphin was
"short, dry and morose;" Somers tried to make explanations, which Swift
received with studied coldness. The ever-courteous Halifax gave him
dinners; and asked him to drink to the resurrection of the Whigs, which
Swift refused unless he would add "to their reformation." Halifax
persevered in his attentions, and was always entreating him to go down to
Hampton Court; "which will cost me a guinea to his servants, and twelve
shillings coach hire, and I will see him hanged first." Swift, however,
retained his old friendship with the wits of the party; dined with Addison
at his retreat in Chelsea, and sent a trifle or two to the _Tatler_. The
elections began in October; Swift had to drive through a rabble of
Westminster electors, judiciously agreeing with their sentiments to avoid
dead cats and broken glasses; and though Addison was elected ("I believe,"
says Swift, "if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be
refused"), the Tories were triumphant in every direction. And meanwhile,
the Tory leaders were delightfully civil.
On the 4th of October Swift was introduced to Harley, getting himself
described (with undeniable truth) "as a discontented person, who was ill
used for not being Whig enough." The poor Whigs lamentably confess, he
says, their ill usage of him, "but I mind them not." Their confession came
too late. Harley had received him with open arms, and won not only Swift's
adhesion, but his warm personal attachment. The fact is indisputable,
though rather curious. Harley appears to us as a shifty and feeble
politician, an inarticulate orator, wanting in principles and resolution,
who made it his avowed and almost only rule of conduct that a politician
should live from hand to mouth.[21] Yet his prolonged influence in
Parliament seems to indicate some personal attraction, which was
perceptible to his contemporaries, though rather puzzling to us. All
Swift's panegyrics leave the secret in obscurity. Harley seems indeed to
have been eminently respectable and decorously religious, amiable in
personal intercourse, and able to say nothing in such a way as to suggest
profundity instead of emptiness. His reputation as a party manager was
immense; and is partly justified by his quick recognition of Swift's
extraordinary qualifications. He had inferior scribblers in his pay,
including, as we remember with regret, the shifty Defoe. But he wanted a
man of genuine ability and character. Some months later the ministers told
Swift that they had been afraid of none but him; and resolved to have him.
They got him. Harley had received him "with the greatest kindness and
respect imaginable." Three days later (Oct. 7th) the firstfruits business
is discussed, and Harley received the proposals as warmly as became a
friend of the Church, besides overwhelming Swift with civilities. Swift is
to be introduced to St. John; to dine with Harley next Tuesday; and after
an interview of four hours, the minister sets him down at St James's
Coffee-house in a hackney coach. "All this is odd and comical!" exclaims
Swift; "he knew my Christian name very well," and, as we hear next day,
begged Swift to come to him often, but not to his levée: "that was not a
place for friends to meet." On the 10th of October, within a week from the
first introduction, Harley promises to get the firstfruits business, over
which the Whigs had haggled for years, settled by the following Sunday.
Swift's exultation breaks out. On the 14th he declares that he stands ten
times better with the new people than ever he did with the old, and is
forty times more caressed. The triumph is sharpened by revenge. Nothing,
he says of the sort was ever compassed so soon; "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 side
that they used a man unworthily who deserved better." A passage on Nov.
8th sums up his sentiments. "Why," he says in answer to something from
Stella, "should the Whigs think I came from Ireland to leave them? Sure my
journey was no secret! I protest sincerely, I did all I could to hinder
it, as the dean can tell you, though now I do not repent it. But who the
devil cares what they think? Am I under obligations in the least to any of
them all? Rot them for ungrateful dogs; I will make them repent their
usage before I leave this place." The thirst for vengeance may not be
edifying; the political zeal was clearly not of the purest; but in truth,
Swift's party prejudices and his personal resentments are fused into
indissoluble unity. Hatred of Whig principles and resentment of Whig
"ill-usage" of himself, are one and the same thing. Meanwhile, Swift was
able (on Nov. 4) to announce his triumph to the Archbishop. He was greatly
annoyed by an incident, of which he must also have seen the humorous side.
The Irish bishops had bethought themselves after Swift's departure that he
was too much of a Whig to be an effective solicitor. They proposed
therefore to take the matter out of his hands and apply to Ormond, the new
Lord Lieutenant. Swift replied indignantly; the thing was done, however,
and he took care to let it be known that the whole credit belonged to
Harley, and of course, in a subordinate sense, to himself. Official
formalities were protracted for months longer, and formed one excuse for
Swift's continued absence from Ireland; but we need not trouble ourselves
with the matter further.
Swift's unprecedented leap into favour meant more than a temporary
success. The intimacy with Harley and with St. John rapidly developed.
Within a few months, Swift had forced his way into the very innermost
circle of official authority. A notable quarrel seems to have given the
final impulse to his career. In February, 1711, Harley offered him a
fifty-pound note. This was virtually to treat him as a hireling instead of
an ally. Swift resented the offer as an intolerable affront. He refused to
be reconciled without ample apology, and after long entreaties. His pride
was not appeased for ten days, when the reconciliation was sealed by an
invitation from Harley to a Saturday dinner.[22] On Saturdays, the Lord
Keeper (Harcourt) and the Secretary of State (St. John) dined alone with
Harley: "and at last," says Swift, in reporting the event, "they have
consented to let me among them on that day." He goes next day, and already
chides Lord Rivers for presuming to intrude into the sacred circle. "They
call me nothing but Jonathan," he adds; "and I said I believed they would
leave me Jonathan, as they found me." These dinners were continued, though
they became less select. Harley called Saturday his "whipping-day;" and
Swift was the heartiest wielder of the lash. From the same February, Swift
began to dine regularly with St. John every Sunday; and we may note it as
some indication of the causes of his later preference of Harley, that on
one occasion he has to leave St. John early. The company, he says, were in
constraint, because he would suffer no man to swear or talk indecently in
his presence.
Swift had thus conquered the ministry at a blow. What services did he
render in exchange? His extraordinary influence seems to have been due in
a measure to sheer force of personal ascendency. No man could come into
contact with Swift without feeling that magnetic influence. But he was
also doing a more tangible service. In thus admitting Swift to their
intimacy, Harley and St. John were in fact paying homage to the rising
power of the pen. Political writers had hitherto been hirelings, and often
little better than spies. No preceding, and, we may add, no succeeding
writer ever achieved such a position by such means. The press has become
more powerful as a whole: but no particular representative of the press
has made such a leap into power. Swift came at the time when the influence
of political writing was already great: and when the personal favour of a
prominent minister could still work miracles. Harley made him a favourite
of the old stamp, to reward his supremacy in the use of the new weapon.
Swift had begun in October by avenging himself upon Godolphin's coldness,
in a copy of Hudibrastic verses about the virtues of Sid Hamet the
Magician's Rod--that is, the treasurer's staff of office--which had a
wonderful success. He fell savagely upon the hated Wharton not long after,
in what he calls "a damned libellous pamphlet," of which 2000 copies were
sold in two days. Libellous, indeed, is a faint epithet to describe a
production which, if its statements be true, proves that Wharton deserved
to be hunted from society. Charges of lying, treachery, atheism,
Presbyterianism, debauchery, indecency, shameless indifference to his own
reputation and his wife's, the vilest corruption and tyranny in his
government are piled upon his victim as thickly as they will stand. Swift
does not expect to sting Wharton. "I neither love nor hate him," he says.
"If I see him after this is published, he will tell me 'that he is
damnably mauled;' and then, with the easiest transition in the world, ask
about the weather, or the time of day." Wharton might possibly think that
abuse of this kind might almost defeat itself by its own virulence. But
Swift had already begun writings of a more statesmanlike and effective
kind.
A paper war was already raging when Swift came to London. The _Examiner_
had been started by St. John, with the help of Atterbury, Prior, and
others; and, opposed for a short time by Addison, in the _Whig Examiner_.
Harley, after granting the first-fruits, had told Swift, that the great
want of the ministry was "some good pen," to keep up the spirits of the
party. The _Examiner_, however, was in need of a firmer and more regular
manager; and Swift took it in hand, his first weekly article appearing
November 2nd, 1710, his last on June 14th, 1711. His _Examiners_ achieved
an immediate and unprecedented success. And yet to say the truth, a modern
reader is apt to find them decidedly heavy. No one, indeed, can fail to
perceive the masculine sense, the terseness and precision of the
utterance. And yet many writings which produced less effect are far more
readable now. The explanation is simple, and applies to most of Swift's
political writings. They are all rather acts than words. They are blows
struck in a party-contest: and their merit is to be gauged by their
effect. Swift cares nothing for eloquence, or logic, or invective--and
little, it must be added, for veracity--so long as he hits his mark. To
judge him by a merely literary standard, is to judge a fencer by the grace
of his attitudes. Some high literary merits are implied in efficiency, as
real grace is necessary to efficient fencing: but in either case, a clumsy
blow which reaches the heart is better than the most dexterous flourish in
the air. Swift's eye is always on the end, as a good marksman looks at
nothing but the target.
What, then, is Swift's aim in the _Examiner_? Mr. Kinglake has told us how
a great journal throve by discovering what was the remark that was on
every one's lips, and making the remark its own. Swift had the more
dignified task of really striking the keynote for his party. He was to put
the ministerial theory into that form in which it might seem to be the
inevitable utterance of strong common-sense. Harley's supporters were to
see in Swift's phrases just what they would themselves have said--if they
had been able. The shrewd, sturdy, narrow prejudices of the average
Englishman were to be pressed into the service of the ministry, by
showing how admirably they could be clothed in the ministerial formulas.
The real question, again, as Swift saw, was the question of peace. Whig
and Tory, as he said afterwards,[23] were really obsolete words. The true
point at issue was peace or war. The purpose, therefore, was to take up
his ground so that peace might be represented as the natural policy of the
church or Tory party; and war as the natural fruit of the selfish Whigs.
It was necessary, at the same time, to show that this was not the
utterance of high-flying Toryism or downright Jacobitism, but the plain
dictate of a cool and impartial judgment. He was not to prove but to take
for granted that the war had become intolerably burdensome; and to express
the growing wish for peace in terms likely to conciliate the greatest
number of supporters. He was to lay down the platform which could attract
as many as possible, both of the zealous Tories and of the lukewarm Whigs.
Measured by their fitness for this end, the _Examiners_ are admirable.
Their very fitness for the end implies the absence of some qualities which
would have been more attractive to posterity. Stirring appeals to
patriotic sentiment may suit a Chatham rousing a nation to action; but
Swift's aim is to check the extravagance in the name of selfish prosaic
prudence. The philosophic reflections of Burke, had Swift been capable of
such reflection, would have flown above the heads of his hearers. Even the
polished and elaborate invective of Junius would have been out of place.
No man, indeed, was a greater master of invective than Swift. He shows it
in the _Examiners_ by onslaughts upon the detested Wharton. He shows,
too, that he is not restrained by any scruples when it comes in his way to
attack his old patrons, and he adopts the current imputations upon their
private character. He could roundly accuse Cowper of bigamy, and
Somers--the Somers whom he had elaborately praised some years before in
the dedication to the _Tale of a Tub_--of the most abominable perversion
of justice. But these are taunts thrown out by the way. The substance of
the articles is not invective, but profession of political faith. One
great name, indeed, is of necessity assailed. Marlborough's fame was a
tower of strength for the Whigs. His duchess and his colleagues had
fallen; but whilst war was still raging, it seemed impossible to dismiss
the greatest living commander. Yet whilst Marlborough was still in power,
his influence might be used to bring back his party. Swift's treatment of
this great adversary is significant. He constantly took credit for having
suppressed many attacks[24] upon Marlborough. He was convinced that it
would be dangerous for the country to dismiss a general whose very name
carried victory.[25] He felt that it was dangerous for the party to make
an unreserved attack upon the popular hero. Lord Rivers, he says, cursed
the _Examiner_ to him for speaking civilly of Marlborough; and St. John,
upon hearing of this, replied that if the counsels of such men as Rivers
were taken, the ministry "would be blown up in twenty-four hours." Yet
Marlborough was the war personified; and the way to victory lay over
Marlborough's body. Nor had Swift any regard for the man himself, who, he
says,[26] is certainly a vile man, and has no sort of merit except the
military--as "covetous as hell, and as ambitious as the prince of
it."[27] The whole case of the ministry implied the condemnation of
Marlborough. Most modern historians would admit that continuance of the
war could at this time be desired only by fanatics or interested persons.
A psychologist might amuse himself by inquiring what were the actual
motives of its advocates; in what degrees personal ambition, a misguided
patriotism, or some more sordid passions were blended. But in the ordinary
dialect of political warfare there is no room for such refinements. The
theory of Swift and Swift's patrons was simple. The war was the creation
of the Whig "ring;" it was carried on for their own purposes by the
stock-jobbers and "monied men," whose rise was a new political phenomenon,
and who had introduced the diabolical contrivance of public debts. The
landed interest and the church had been hoodwinked too long by the union
of corrupt interests supported by Dutchmen, Scotchmen, dissenters,
freethinkers, and other manifestations of the evil principle. Marlborough
was the head and patron of the whole. And what was Marlborough's motive?
The answer was simple. It was that which has been assigned, with even more
emphasis, by Macaulay--Avarice. The twenty-seventh _Examiner_ (Feb. 8th,
1711) probably contains the compliments to which Rivers objected. Swift,
in fact, admits that Marlborough had all the great qualities generally
attributed to him; but all are spoilt by this fatal blemish. How far the
accusation was true matters little. It is put at least with force and
dignity; and it expressed in the pithiest shape Swift's genuine
conviction, that the war now meant corrupt self-interest. Invective, as
Swift knew well enough in his cooler moments, is a dangerous weapon, apt
to recoil on the assailant unless it carries conviction. The attack on
Marlborough does not betray personal animosity; but the deliberate and the
highly plausible judgment of a man determined to call things by their
right names, and not to be blinded by military glory.
This, indeed, is one of the points upon which Swift's Toryism was unlike
that of some later periods. He always disliked and despised soldiers and
their trade. "It will no doubt be a mighty comfort to our grandchildren,"
he says in another pamphlet,[28] "when they see a few rags hung up in
Westminster Hall which cost a hundred millions, whereof they are paying
the arrears, to boast as beggars do that their grandfathers were rich and
great." And in other respects he has some right to claim the adhesion of
thorough Whigs. His personal attacks, indeed, upon the party have a
questionable sound. In his zeal he constantly forgets that the corrupt
ring which he denounces were the very men from whom he expected
preferment. "I well remember," he says[29] elsewhere, "the clamours often
raised during the late reign of that party (the Whigs) against the leaders
by those who thought their merits were not rewarded; and they had, no
doubt, reason on their side, because it is, no doubt, a misfortune to
forfeit honour and conscience for nothing"--rather an awkward remark from
a man who was calling Somers "a false, deceitful rascal" for not giving
him a bishopric! His eager desire to make the "ungrateful dogs" repent
their ill-usage of him prompts attacks which injure his own character with
that of his former associates. But he has some ground for saying that
Whigs have changed their principles, in the sense that their dislike of
prerogative and of standing armies had curiously declined when the Crown
and the army came to be on their side. Their enjoyment of power had made
them soften some of the prejudices learnt in days of depression. Swift's
dislike of what we now call "militarism" really went deeper than any party
sentiment; and in that sense, as we shall hereafter see, it had really
most affinity with a radicalism which would have shocked Whigs and Tories
alike. But in this particular case it fell in with the Tory sentiment. The
masculine vigour of the _Examiners_ served the ministry, who were scarcely
less in danger from the excessive zeal of their more bigoted followers
than from the resistance of the Whig minority. The pig-headed country
squires had formed an October Club, to muddle themselves with beer and
politics, and hoped--good honest souls--to drive ministers into a genuine
attack on the corrupt practices of their predecessors. All Harley's skill
in intriguing and wire-pulling would be needed. The ministry, said Swift
(on March 4th), "stood like an isthmus" between Whigs and violent Tories.
He trembled for the result. They are able seamen, but the tempest "is too
great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them." Somers had
been twice in the queen's closet. The Duchess of Somerset, who had
succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough, might be trying to play Mrs.
Masham's game. Harley, "though the most fearless man alive," seemed to be
nervous, and was far from well. "Pray God preserve his health," says
Swift; "everything depends upon it." Four days later, Swift is in an
agony. "My heart," he exclaims, "is almost broken." Harley had been
stabbed by Guiscard (March 8th, 1711) at the council-board. Swift's
letters and journals show an agitation, in which personal affection seems
to be even stronger than political anxiety. "Pray pardon my distraction,"
he says to Stella, in broken sentences. "I now think of all his kindness
to me. The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French
popish villain. Good night, and God bless you both, and pity me; I want
it." He wrote to King under the same excitement. Harley, he says, "has
always treated me with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused me
any favour I asked for a friend; therefore I hope your Grace will excuse
the character of this letter." He apologizes again in a postscript for his
confusion; it must be imputed to the "violent pain of mind I am
in--greater than ever I felt in my life." The danger was not over for
three weeks. The chief effect seems to have been that Harley became
popular as the intended victim of an hypothetical Popish conspiracy; he
introduced an applauded financial scheme in Parliament after his recovery,
and was soon afterwards made Earl of Oxford by way of consolation. "This
man," exclaimed Swift, "has grown by persecutions, turnings out, and
stabbings. What waiting and crowding and bowing there will be at his
levee!"
Swift had meanwhile (April 26) retired to Chelsea "for the air," and to
have the advantage of a compulsory walk into town (two miles, or 5748
steps each way, he calculates). He was liable, indeed, to disappointment
on a rainy day, when "all the three stage-coaches" were taken up by the
"cunning natives of Chelsea;" but he got a lift to town in a gentleman's
coach for a shilling. He bathed in the river on the hot nights, with his
Irish servant, Patrick, standing on the bank to warn off passing boats.
The said Patrick, who is always getting drunk, whom Swift cannot find it
in his heart to dismiss in England, who atones for his general
carelessness and lying by buying a linnet for Dingley, making it wilder
than ever in his attempts to tame it, is a characteristic figure in the
journal. In June Swift gets ten days' holiday at Wycombe, and in the
summer he goes down pretty often with the ministers to Windsor. He came to
town in two hours and forty minutes on one occasion: "twenty miles are
nothing here." The journeys are described in one of the happiest of his
occasional poems--
'Tis (let me see) three years or more
(October next it will be four)
Since Harley bid me first attend
And chose me for an humble friend:
Would take me in his coach to chat
And question me of this or that:
As "What's o'clock?" and "How's the wind?"
"Whose chariot's that we left behind?"
Or gravely try to read the lines
Writ underneath the country signs.
Or, "Have you nothing new to-day,
From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?"
Such tattle often entertains
My lord and me as far as Staines,
As once a week we travel down
To Windsor, and again to town,
Where all that passes _inter nos_
Might be proclaimed at Charing Cross.
And when, it is said, St. John was disgusted by the frivolous amusements
of his companions; and his political discourses might be interrupted by
Harley's exclamation, "Swift, I am up; there's a cat"--the first who saw a
cat or an old woman, winning the game.
Swift and Harley were soon playing a more exciting game. Prior had been
sent to France to renew peace negotiations, with elaborate mystery. Even
Swift was kept in ignorance. On his return Prior was arrested by
officious custom-house officers, and the fact of his journey became
public. Swift took advantage of the general interest by a pamphlet
intended to "bite the town." Its political purpose, according to Swift,
was to "furnish fools with something to talk of;" to draw a false scent
across the trail of the angry and suspicious Whigs. It seems difficult to
believe that any such effect could be produced or anticipated; but the
pamphlet, which purports to be an account of Prior's journey given by a
French valet, desirous of passing himself off as a secretary, is an
amusing example of Swift's power of grave simulation of realities. The
peace negotiations brought on a decisive political struggle. Parliament
was to meet in September. The Whigs resolved to make a desperate effort.
They had lost the House of Commons, but were still strong in the Peers.
The Lords were not affected by the rapid oscillations of public opinion.
They were free from some of the narrower prejudices of country squires,
and true to a revolution which gave the chief power for more than a
century to the aristocracy: while the recent creations had ennobled the
great Whig leaders, and filled the bench with low churchmen. Marlborough
and Godolphin had come over to the Whig junto, and an additional alliance
was now made. Nottingham had been passed over by Harley, as it seems, for
his extreme Tory principles. In his wrath, he made an agreement with the
other extreme. By one of the most disgraceful bargains of party history,
Nottingham was to join the Whigs in attacking the peace, whilst the Whigs
were to buy his support by accepting the Occasional Conformity Bill--the
favourite high church measure. A majority in the House of Lords could not
indeed determine the victory. The Government of England, says Swift in
1715,[30] "cannot move a step while the House of Commons continues to
dislike proceedings or persons employed." But the plot went further. The
House of Lords might bring about a deadlock, as it had done before. The
queen, having thrown off the rule of the Duchess of Marlborough, had
sought safety in the rule of two mistresses, Mrs. Masham and the Duchess
of Somerset. The Duchess of Somerset was in the Whig interest; and her
influence with the queen caused the gravest anxiety to Swift and the
ministry. She might induce Anne to call back the Whigs, and in a new House
of Commons, elected under a Whig ministry wielding the crown influence and
appealing to the dread of a discreditable peace, the majority might be
reversed. Meanwhile Prince Eugene was expected to pay a visit to England,
bringing fresh proposals for war, and stimulating by his presence the
enthusiasm of the Whigs.
Towards the end of September the Whigs began to pour in a heavy fire of
pamphlets, and Swift rather meanly begs the help of St. John and the law.
But he is confident of victory. Peace is certain; and a peace "very much
to the honour and advantage of England." The Whigs are furious; "but we'll
wherret them, I warrant, boys." Yet he has misgivings. The news comes of
the failure of the Tory expedition against Quebec, which was to have
anticipated the policy and the triumphs of Chatham. Harley only laughs as
usual; but St. John is cruelly vexed, and begins to suspect his colleagues
of suspecting him. Swift listens to both, and tries to smooth matters; but
he is growing serious. "I am half weary of them all," he exclaims, and
begins to talk of retiring to Ireland. Harley has a slight illness, and
Swift is at once in a fright. "We are all undone without him," he says,
"so pray for him, sirrahs!" Meanwhile, as the parliamentary struggle comes
nearer, Swift launches the pamphlet which has been his summer's work. The
_Conduct of the Allies_ is intended to prove what he had taken for granted
in the _Examiners_. It is to show, that is, that the war has ceased to be
demanded by national interests. We ought always to have been auxiliaries;
we chose to become principals; and have yet so conducted the war that all
the advantages have gone to the Dutch. The explanation of course is the
selfishness or corruption of the great Whig junto. The pamphlet, forcible
and terse in the highest degree, had a success due in part to other
circumstances. It was as much a State paper as a pamphlet; a manifesto
obviously inspired by the ministry and containing the facts and papers
which were to serve in the coming debates. It was published on Nov. 27th;
on December 1st the second edition was sold in five hours; and by the end
of January 11,000 copies had been sold. The parliamentary struggle began
on December 7th; and the amendment to the address, declaring that no peace
could be safe which left Spain to the Bourbons, was moved by Nottingham,
and carried by a small majority. Swift had foreseen this danger; he had
begged ministers to work up the majority; and the defeat was due to
Harley's carelessness. It was Swift's temper to anticipate though not to
yield to the worst. He could see nothing but ruin. Every rumour increased
his fears, The queen had taken the hand of the Duke of Somerset on leaving
the House of Lords, and refused Shrewsbury's. She must be going over.
Swift, in his despair, asked St. John to find him some foreign post, where
he might be out of harm's way if the Whigs should triumph. St. John
laughed and affected courage, but Swift refused to be comforted. Harley
told him that "all would be well;" but Harley for the moment had lost his
confidence. A week after the vote he looks upon the ministry as certainly
ruined; and "God knows," he adds, "what may be the consequences." By
degrees a little hope began to appear; though the ministry, as Swift still
held, could expect nothing till the Duchess of Somerset was turned out. By
way of accelerating this event, he hit upon a plan, which he had reason to
repent, and which nothing but his excitement could explain. He composed
and printed one of his favourite squibs, the _Windsor Prophecy_, and
though Mrs. Masham persuaded him not to publish it, distributed too many
copies for secrecy to be possible. In this production, now dull enough, he
calls the duchess "carrots," as a delicate hint at her red hair, and says
that she murdered her second husband.[31] These statements, even if true,
were not conciliatory; and it was folly to irritate without injuring.
Meanwhile reports of ministerial plans gave him a little courage; and in a
day or two the secret was out. He was on his way to the post on Saturday,
December 28th, when the great news came. The ministry had resolved on
something like a _coup d'état_, to be long mentioned with horror by all
orthodox Whigs and Tories. "I have broke open my letter," scribbled Swift
in a coffee-house, "and tore it into the bargain, to let you know that we
are all safe. The queen has made no less than twelve new peers ... and has
turned out the Duke of Somerset. She is awaked at last, and so is Lord
Treasurer. I want nothing now but to see the duchess out. But we shall do
without her. We are all extremely happy. Give me joy, sirrahs!" The Duke
of Somerset was not out; but a greater event happened within three days;
the Duke of Marlborough was removed from all his employments. The Tory
victory was for the time complete.
Here, too, was the culminating point of Swift's career. Fifteen months of
energetic effort had been crowned with success. He was the intimate of the
greatest men in the country; and the most powerful exponent of their
policy. No man in England, outside the ministry, enjoyed a wider
reputation. The ball was at his feet; and no position open to a clergyman
beyond his hopes. Yet from this period begins a decline. He continued to
write, publishing numerous squibs, of which many have been lost, and
occasionally firing a gun of heavier metal. But nothing came from him
having the authoritative and masterly tone of the _Conduct of the Allies_.
His health broke down. At the beginning of April, 1712, he was attacked by
a distressing complaint; and his old enemy, giddiness, gave him frequent
alarms. The daily journal ceased, and was not fairly resumed till
December, though its place is partly supplied by occasional letters. The
political contest had changed its character. The centre of interest was
transferred to Utrecht, where negotiations began in January, to be
protracted over fifteen months: the ministry had to satisfy the demand for
peace, without shocking the national self-esteem. Meanwhile jealousies
were rapidly developing themselves, which Swift watched with ever-growing
anxiety.
Swift's personal influence remained or increased. He drew closer to
Oxford, but was still friendly with St. John; and to the public his
position seemed more imposing than ever. Swift was not the man to bear his
honours meekly. In the early period of his acquaintance with St. John
(February 12, 1711), he sends the Prime Minister into the House of
Commons, to tell the Secretary of State that "I would not dine with him if
he dined late." He is still a novice at the Saturday dinners when the Duke
of Shrewsbury appears: Swift whispers that he does not like to see a
stranger among them; and St. John has to explain that the Duke has written
for leave. St. John then tells Swift that the Duke of Buckingham desires
his acquaintance. The Duke, replied Swift, has not made sufficient
advances: and he always expects greater advances from men in proportion to
their rank. Dukes and great men yielded, if only to humour the pride of
this audacious parson: and Swift soon came to be pestered by innumerable
applicants, attracted by his ostentation of influence. Even ministers
applied through him. "There is not one of them," he says, in January,
1713, "but what will employ me as gravely to speak for them to Lord
Treasurer, as if I were their brother or his." He is proud of the burden
of influence with the great, though he affects to complain. The most vivid
picture of Swift in all his glory, is in a familiar passage from Bishop
Kennett's diary:--
"Swift," says Kennett, in 1713, "came into the coffee-house, and had a
bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber to wait
before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business,
and acted as minister of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran
to speak to his brother the Duke of Ormond to get a chaplain's place
established in the garrison of Hull, for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in
that neighbourhood, who had lately been in jail, and published sermons
to pay fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my Lord
Treasurer that according to his petition he should obtain a salary of
200_l._ per annum, as minister of the English Church at Rotterdam. He
stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the queen, and
told him aloud he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer.
He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant to be sent abroad, and took out
his pocket-book and wrote down several things as _memoranda_, to do
for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and
telling him the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman
said, "it was too fast." "How can I help it," says the Doctor, "if the
courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?" Then he instructed a
young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist),
who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which, he
said, he must have them all subscribe. 'For,' says he, 'the author
_shall not_ begin to print till _I have_ a thousand guineas for him.'
Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room,
beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him; both went off just before prayers."
There is undoubtedly something offensive in this blustering
self-assertion. "No man," says Johnson, with his usual force, "can pay a
more servile tribute to the great than by suffering his liberty in their
presence to aggrandize him in his own esteem." Delicacy was not Swift's
strong point; his compliments are as clumsy as his invectives are
forcible; and he shows a certain taint of vulgarity in his intercourse
with social dignitaries. He is perhaps avenging himself for the
humiliations received at Moor Park. He has a Napoleonic absence of
magnanimity. He likes to relish his triumph; to accept the pettiest as
well as the greatest rewards; to flaunt his splendours in the eyes of the
servile as well as to enjoy the consciousness of real power. But it would
be a great mistake to infer that this ostentatiousness of authority
concealed real servility. Swift preferred to take the bull by the horns.
He forced himself upon ministers by self-assertion; and he held them in
awe of him as the lion-tamer keeps down the latent ferocity of the wild
beast. He never takes his eye off his subjects, nor lowers his imperious
demeanour. He retained his influence, as Johnson observes, long after his
services had ceased to be useful. And all this demonstrative patronage
meant real and energetic work. We may note, for example, and it
incidentally confirms Kennett's accuracy, that he was really serviceable
to Davenant,[32] and that Fiddes got the chaplaincy at Hull. No man ever
threw himself with more energy into the service of his friends. He
declared afterwards that in the days of his credit he had done fifty times
more for fifty people, from whom he had received no obligations, than
Temple had done for him.[33] The journal abounds in proofs that this was
not overstated. There is "Mr. Harrison," for example, who has written
"some mighty pretty things." Swift takes him up; rescues him from the fine
friends who are carelessly tempting him to extravagance; tries to start
him in a continuation of the _Tatler_; exults in getting him a
secretaryship abroad, which he declares to be "the prettiest post in
Europe for a young gentleman;" and is most unaffectedly and deeply grieved
when the poor lad dies of a fever. He is carrying 100_l._ to his young
friend, when he hears of his death. "I told Parnell I was afraid to knock
at the door, my mind misgave me," he says. On his way to bring help to
Harrison, he goes to see a "poor poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret,
very sick," and consoles him with twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke. A
few days before he has managed to introduce Parnell to Harley, or rather
to contrive it so that "the ministry desire to be acquainted with Parnell,
and not Parnell with the ministry." His old schoolfellow Congreve was in
alarm about his appointments. Swift spoke at once to Harley, and went off
immediately to report his success to Congreve: "so," he says, "I have made
a worthy man easy, and that is a good day's work."[34] One of the latest
letters in his journal refers to his attempt to serve his other
schoolfellow, Berkeley. "I will favour him as much as I can," he says;
"this I think I am bound to in honour and conscience, to use all my little
credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world." He was always
helping less conspicuous men; and he prided himself, with justice, that he
had been as helpful to Whigs as to Tories. The ministry complained that he
never came to them "without a Whig in his sleeve." Besides his friend
Congreve, he recommended Rowe for preferment, and did his best to protect
Steele and Addison. No man of letters ever laboured more heartily to
promote the interests of his fellow-craftsmen, as few have ever had
similar opportunities.
Swift, it is plain, desired to use his influence magnificently. He hoped
to make his reign memorable by splendid patronage of literature. The great
organ of munificence was the famous Brothers' Club, of which he was the
animating spirit. It was founded in June, 1711, during Swift's absence at
Wycombe; it was intended to "advance conversation and friendship," and
obtain patronage for deserving persons. It was to include none but wits
and men able to help wits, and, "if we go on as we begun," says Swift, "no
other club in this town will be worth talking of." In March, 1712, it
consisted, as Swift tells us, of nine lords and ten commoners.[35] It
excluded Harley and the Lord Keeper (Harcourt) apparently as they were to
be the distributors of the patronage; but it included St. John and several
leading ministers, Harley's son and son-in-law, and Harcourt's son; whilst
literature was represented by Swift, Arbuthnot, Prior, and Friend, all of
whom were more or less actively employed by the ministry. The club was
therefore composed of the ministry and their dependents, though it had not
avowedly a political colouring. It dined on Thursday during the
Parliamentary session, when the political squibs of the day were often
laid on the table, including Swift's famous _Windsor Prophecy_, and
subscriptions were sometimes collected for such men as Diaper and
Harrison. It flourished, however, for little more than the first season.
In the winter of 1712-13 it began to suffer from the common disease of
such institutions. Swift began to complain bitterly of the extravagance of
the charges. He gets the club to leave a tavern in which the bill[36] "for
four dishes and four, first and second course, without wine and drink,"
had been 21_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ The number of guests, it seems, was fourteen.
Next winter the charges are divided. "It cost me nineteen shillings to-day
for my club dinner," notes Swift, Dec. 18, 1712. "I don't like it." Swift
had a high value for every one of the nineteen shillings. The meetings
became irregular: Harley was ready to give promises, but no patronage: and
Swift's attendance falls off. Indeed, it may be noted that he found
dinners and suppers full of danger to his health. He constantly complains
of their after-effects; and partly perhaps for that reason he early ceases
to frequent coffee-houses. Perhaps too his contempt for coffee-house
society, and the increasing dignity which made it desirable to keep
possible applicants at a distance, had much to do with this. The Brothers'
Club, however, was long remembered by its members, and in later years they
often address each other by the old fraternal title.
One design which was to have signalized Swift's period of power, suggested
the only paper which he had ever published with his name. It was a
"proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English
language," published in May, 1712, in the form of a letter to Harley. The
letter itself, written offhand in six hours (Feb. 21, 1712), is not of
much value; but Swift recurs to the subject frequently enough to show that
he really hoped to be the founder of an English Academy. Had Swift been
his own minister instead of the driver of a minister, the project might
have been started. The rapid development of the political struggle sent
Swift's academy to the limbo provided for such things; and few English
authors will regret the failure of a scheme unsuited to our natural
idiosyncrasy, and calculated, as I fancy, to end in nothing but an
organization of pedantry.
One remark meanwhile occurs which certainly struck Swift himself. He says
(March 17, 1712) that Sacheverel, the Tory martyr, has come to him for
patronage, and observes that when he left Ireland neither of them could
have anticipated such a relationship. "This," he adds, "is the seventh I
have now provided for since I came, and can do nothing for myself." Hints
at a desire for preferment do not appear for some time; but as he is
constantly speaking of an early return to Ireland, and is as regularly
held back by the entreaties of the ministry, there must have been at least
an implied promise. A hint had been given that he might be made chaplain
to Harley, when the minister became Earl of Oxford. "I will be no man's
chaplain alive," he says. He remarks about the same time (May 23, 1711)
that it "would look extremely little" if he returned without some
distinction; but he will not beg for preferment. The ministry, he says in
the following August, only want him for one bit of business (the _Conduct
of the Allies_ presumably). When that is done, he will take his leave of
them. "I never got a penny from them nor expect it." The only post for
which he made a direct application was that of historiographer. He had
made considerable preparations for his so-called _History of the Last Four
Years of Queen Anne_, which appeared posthumously; and which may be
described as one of his political pamphlets without the vigour[37]--a dull
statement of facts put together by a partisan affecting the historical
character. This application, however, was not made till April, 1714, when
Swift was possessed of all the preferment that he was destined to receive.
He considered in his haughty way that he should be entreated rather than
entreat; and ministers were perhaps slow to give him anything which could
take him away from them. A secret influence was at work against him. The
_Tale of a Tub_ was brought up against him; and imputations upon his
orthodoxy were common. Nottingham even revenged himself by describing
Swift in the House of Lords as a divine "who is hardly suspected of being
a Christian." Such insinuations were also turned to account by the Duchess
of Somerset, who retained her influence over Anne in spite of Swift's
attacks. His journal in the winter of 1712-13 shows growing discontent. In
December, 1712, he resolves to write no more till something is done for
him. He will get under shelter before he makes more enemies. He declares
that he is "soliciting nothing" (February 4, 1713), but he is growing
impatient. Harley is kinder than ever. "Mighty kind!" exclaims Swift,
"with a ----; less of civility and more of interest;" or as he puts it in
one of his favourite "proverbs" soon afterwards--"my grandmother used to
say,--
More of your lining
And less of your dining."
At last Swift, hearing that he was again to be passed over, gave a
positive intimation that he would retire if nothing was done; adding that
he should complain of Harley for nothing but neglecting to inform him
sooner of the hopelessness of his position.[38] The dean of St. Patrick's
was at last promoted to a bishopric, and Swift appointed to the vacant
deanery. The warrant was signed on April 23, and in June Swift set out to
take possession of his deanery. It was no great prize; he would have to
pay 1000_l._ for the house and fees, and thus, he says, it would be three
years before he would be the richer for it; and, moreover, it involved
what he already described as "banishment" to a country which he hated.
His state of mind when entering upon his preferment was painfully
depressed. "At my first coming," he writes to Miss Vanhomrigh, "I thought
I should have died with discontent; and was horribly melancholy while they
were installing me; but it begins to wear off, and change to dulness."
This depression is singular, when we remember that Swift was returning to
the woman for whom he had the strongest affection, and from whom he had
been separated for nearly three years; and moreover, that he was returning
as a famous and a successful man. He seems to have been received with some
disfavour by a society of Whig proclivities; he was suffering from a fresh
return of ill-health; and besides the absence from the political struggles
in which he was so keenly interested, he could not think of them without
deep anxiety. He returned to London in October at the earnest request of
political friends. Matters were looking serious; and though the journal to
Stella was not again taken up, we can pretty well trace the events of the
following period.
There can rarely have been a less congenial pair of colleagues than Harley
and St. John. Their union was that of a still more brilliant, daring, and
self-confident Disraeli with a very inferior edition of Sir Robert Peel,
with smaller intellect and exaggerated infirmities. The timidity,
procrastination, and "refinement" of the Treasurer were calculated to
exasperate his audacious colleague. From the earliest period Swift had
declared that everything depended upon the good mutual understanding of
the two; he was frightened by every symptom of discord, and declares (in
August, 1711) that he has ventured all his credit with the Ministers to
remove their differences. He knew, as he afterwards said (October 20,
1711), that this was the way to be sent back to his willows at Laracor,
but everything must be risked in such a case. When difficulties revived
next year he hoped that he had made a reconciliation. But the discord was
too vital. The victory of the Tories brought on a serious danger. They had
come into power to make peace. They had made it. The next question was
that of the succession of the crown. Here they neither reflected the
general opinion of the nation nor were agreed amongst themselves. Harley,
as we now know, had flirted with the Jacobites; and Bolingbroke was deep
in treasonable plots. The existence of such plots was a secret to Swift,
who indignantly denied their existence. When King hinted at a possible
danger to Swift from the discovery of St. John's treason, he indignantly
replied that he must have been "a most false and vile man" to join in
anything of the kind.[39] He professes elsewhere his conviction that there
were not at this period 500 Jacobites in England; and "amongst these not
six of any quality or consequence."[40] Swift's sincerity, here as
everywhere, is beyond all suspicion; but his conviction proves
incidentally that he was in the dark as to the "wheels within wheels"--the
backstairs plots, by which the administration of his friends was hampered
and distracted. With so many causes for jealousy and discord, it is no
wonder that the political world became a mass of complex intrigue and
dispute. The queen, meanwhile, might die at any moment, and some decided
course of action become imperatively necessary. Whenever the queen was
ill, said Harley, people were at their wits' end; as soon as she recovered
they acted as if she were immortal. Yet, though he complained of the
general indecision, his own conduct was most hopelessly undecided.
It was in the hopes of pacifying these intrigues that Swift was recalled
from Ireland. He plunged into the fight, but not with his old success. Two
pamphlets which he published at the end of 1713 are indications of his
state of mind. One was an attack upon a wild no-popery shriek emitted by
Bishop Burnet, whom he treats, says Johnson, "like one whom he is glad of
an opportunity to insult." A man who, like Burnet, is on friendly terms
with those who assail the privileges of his order must often expect such
treatment from its zealous adherents. Yet the scornful assault, which
finds out weak places enough in Burnet's mental rhetoric, is in painful
contrast to the dignified argument of earlier pamphlets. The other
pamphlet was an incident in a more painful contest. Swift had tried to
keep on good terms with Addison and Steele. He had prevented Steele's
dismissal from a Commissionership of Stamps. Steele, however, had lost his
place of Gazetteer for an attack upon Harley. Swift persuaded Harley to be
reconciled to Steele, on condition that Steele should apologize. Addison
prevented Steele from making the required submission, "out of mere spite,"
says Swift, at the thought that Steele should require other help; rather,
we guess, because Addison thought that the submission would savour of
party infidelity. A coldness followed; "all our friendship is over," says
Swift of Addison (March 6th, 1711); and though good feeling revived
between the principals, their intimacy ceased. Swift, swept into the
ministerial vortex, pretty well lost sight of Addison; though they now and
then met on civil terms. Addison dined with Swift and St. John upon April
3rd, 1713, and Swift attended a rehearsal of _Cato_--the only time when we
see him at a theatre. Meanwhile the ill feeling to Steele remained, and
bore bitter fruit.
Steele and Addison had to a great extent retired from politics, and during
the eventful years 1711-12 were chiefly occupied in the politically
harmless _Spectator_. But Steele was always ready to find vent for his
zeal; and in 1713 he fell foul of the _Examiner_ in the _Guardian_. Swift
had long ceased to write _Examiners_ or to be responsible for the conduct
of the paper, though he still occasionally inspired the writers. Steele,
naturally enough, supposed Swift to be still at work; and in defending a
daughter of Steele's enemy, Nottingham, not only suggested that Swift was
her assailant, but added an insinuation that Swift was an infidel. The
imputation stung Swift to the quick. He had a sensibility to personal
attacks, not rare with those who most freely indulge in them, which was
ridiculed by the easy-going Harley. An attack from an old friend--from a
friend whose good opinion he still valued, though their intimacy had
ceased; from a friend, moreover, whom in spite of their separation he had
tried to protect; and, finally, an attack upon the tenderest part of his
character, irritated him beyond measure. Some angry letters passed, Steele
evidently regarding Swift as a traitor, and disbelieving his professions
of innocence and his claims to active kindness; whilst Swift felt Steele's
ingratitude the more deeply from the apparent plausibility of the
accusation. If Steele was really unjust and ungenerous, we may admit as a
partial excuse that in such cases the less prosperous combatant has a kind
of right to bitterness. The quarrel broke out at the time of Swift's
appointment to the deanery. Soon after the new dean's return to England,
Steele was elected member for Stockbridge, and rushed into political
controversy. His most conspicuous performance was a frothy and pompous
pamphlet called the _Crisis_, intended to rouse alarms as to French
invasion and Jacobite intrigues. Swift took the opportunity to revenge
himself upon Steele. Two pamphlets--_The importance of the "Guardian"
considered_, and _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_ (the latter in answer to
the _Crisis_)--are fierce attacks upon Steele personally and politically.
Swift's feeling comes out sufficiently in a remark in the first. He
reverses the saying about Cranmer, and says that he may affirm of Steele,
"Do him a good turn, and he is your enemy for ever." There is vigorous
writing enough, and effective ridicule of Steele's literary style and
political alarmism. But it is painfully obvious, as in the attack upon
Burnet, that personal animosity is now the predominant instead of an
auxiliary feeling. Swift is anxious beyond all things to mortify and
humiliate an antagonist. And he is in proportion less efficient as a
partizan, though more amusing. He has, moreover, the disadvantage of being
politically on the defensive. He is no longer proclaiming a policy, but
endeavouring to disavow the policy attributed to his party. The wrath
which breaks forth, and the bitter personality with which it is edged,
were far more calculated to irritate his opponents than to disarm the
lookers-on of their suspicions.
Part of the fury was no doubt due to the growing unsoundness of his
political position. Steele in the beginning of 1714 was expelled from the
House for the _Crisis_; and an attack made upon Swift in the House of
Lords for an incidental outburst against the hated Scots in his reply to
the _Crisis_, was only staved off by a manoeuvre of the ministry.
Meanwhile Swift was urging the necessity of union upon men who hated each
other more than they regarded any public cause whatever. Swift at last
brought his two patrons together in Lady Masham's lodgings, and entreated
them to be reconciled. If, he said, they would agree, all existing
mischiefs could be remedied in two minutes. If they would not, the
ministry would be ruined in two months. Bolingbroke assented: Oxford
characteristically shuffled, said "all would be well," and asked Swift to
dine with him next day. Swift, however, said that he would not stay to see
the inevitable catastrophe. It was his natural instinct to hide his head
in such moments; his intensely proud and sensitive nature could not bear
to witness the triumph of his enemies, and he accordingly retired at the
end of May, 1714, to the quiet parsonage of Upper Letcombe in Berkshire.
The public wondered and speculated; friends wrote letters describing the
scenes which followed, and desiring Swift's help; and he read, and walked,
and chewed the cud of melancholy reflection, and thought of stealing away
to Ireland. He wrote, however, a very remarkable pamphlet, giving his view
of the situation, which was not published at the time; events went too
fast.
Swift's conduct at this critical point is most noteworthy. The pamphlet
(_Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs_) exactly coincides with
all his private and public utterances. His theory was simple and
straightforward. The existing situation was the culminating result of
Harley's policy of refinement and procrastination. Swift two years before
had written a very able remonstrance with the October Club, who had
sought to push Harley into decisive measures; but though he preached
patience, he really sympathized with their motives. Instead of making a
clean sweep of his opponents, Harley had left many of them in office,
either from "refinement"--that over-subtlety of calculation which Swift
thought inferior to plain common sense, and which, to use his favourite
illustration, is like the sharp knife that mangles the paper, when a
plain, blunt paper-knife cuts it properly--or else from inability to move
the Queen, which he had foolishly allowed to pass for unwillingness, in
order to keep up the appearance of power. Two things were now to be done;
first, a clean sweep should be made of all Whigs and dissenters from
office and from the army; secondly, the Court of Hanover should be
required to break off all intercourse with the Opposition, on which
condition the heir-presumptive (the infant Prince Frederick) might be sent
over to reside in England. Briefly, Swift's policy was a policy of
"thorough." Oxford's vacillations were the great obstacle, and Oxford was
falling before the alliance of Bolingbroke with Lady Masham. Bolingbroke
might have turned Swift's policy to the account of the Jacobites; but
Swift did not take this into account, and in the _Free Thoughts_ he
declares his utter disbelief in any danger to the succession. What side,
then, should he take? He sympathized with Bolingbroke's avowed principles.
Bolingbroke was eager for his help, and even hoped to reconcile him to the
red-haired duchess. But Swift was bound to Oxford by strong personal
affection; by an affection which was not diminished even by the fact that
Oxford had procrastinated in the matter of Swift's own preferment; and
was, at this very moment, annoying him by delaying to pay the 1000_l._
incurred by his installation in the deanery. To Oxford he had addressed
(Nov. 21, 1713) a letter of consolation upon the death of a daughter,
possessing the charm which is given to such letters only by the most
genuine sympathy with the feelings of the loser, and by a spontaneous
selection of the only safe topic--praise of the lost, equally tender and
sincere. Every reference to Oxford is affectionate. When, at the beginning
of July, Oxford was hastening to his fall, Swift wrote to him another
manly and dignified letter, professing an attachment beyond the reach of
external accidents of power and rank. The end came soon. Swift heard that
Oxford was about to resign. He wrote at once (July 25, 1714) to propose to
accompany him to his country house. Oxford replied two days later in a
letter oddly characteristic. He begs Swift to come with him; "If I have
not tired you _tête-à-tête_, fling away so much of your time upon one who
loves you;" and then rather spoils the pathos by a bit of hopeless
doggerel. Swift wrote to Miss Vanhomrigh on August 1. "I have been asked,"
he says, "to join with those people now in power; but I will not do it. I
told Lord Oxford I would go with him, when he was out; and now he begs it
of me, and 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, while he was great, and
his letter to me the other day was the most moving imaginable."
An intimacy which bore such fruit in time of trial was not one founded
upon a servility varnished by self-assertion. No stauncher friend than
Swift ever lived. But his fidelity was not to be put to further proof. The
day of the letter just quoted was the day of Queen Anne's death. The crash
which followed ruined the "people now in power" as effectually as Oxford.
The party with which Swift had identified himself, in whose success all
his hopes and ambitions were bound up, was not so much ruined as
annihilated. "The Earl of Oxford," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift, "was
removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and
how does fortune banter us!"