Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/216

 friendship with Addison was permanent, and is illustrated by one of his pleasantest pieces of humour, ‘Baucis and Philemon,’ a travesty of Ovid. Swift told Delany (p. 19) that Addison had made him ‘blot fourscore lines, add fourscore, and alter fourscore’ in a poem ‘of not two hundred lines.’ Swift exaggerated, but not very much. Forster found the original at Narford, the seat of Sir Andrew Fountaine, and gives the exact figures (, pp. 164, &c.) Addison and Swift met constantly at this time, and never, says Delany, wished for a third person (, p. 32;, p. 159).

Swift spent the whole of 1706 in Ireland, and returned to England in November 1707 with Lord Pembroke, who had been lord lieutenant for a time, and had thus made Swift's acquaintance. Swift had now an official mission. Queen Anne's bounty had been founded in England in 1704. A similar measure had been suggested for Ireland (see Swift to King, 31 Dec. 1704) some time before, and Swift was now instructed to apply to the English government to make the grant. Swift calculated that the surrender of the first-fruits and twentieths and certain other funds for the benefit of the church would cost the crown about 2,500l. a year (see his Memorial to Harley, 17 Nov. 1710). The negotiation dragged, and Swift remained in England till the beginning of 1709. He applied to Somers and other great men, and at last, in June 1708, had an interview with Godolphin. Godolphin intimated that some acknowledgment would be expected from the Irish clergy. The phrase meant that they should consent to the abolition of the test. This was regarded both by Swift and his clients as out of the question. He could for the present only wait for opportunities of further negotiation. He was still reckoned a whig. In January 1708 the bishopric of Waterford was vacant, and Somers, as Swift believed, pressed his claims upon the government (, p. 211). Swift was bitterly disappointed when it was given to Thomas Milles [q. v.] The fall of Harley in February marked the triumph of the whigs. When Somers and others came into office, Swift thought that the change might prove favourable to his cause and himself, though protesting that he would not make his fortune at the expense of the church (to King, 9 Nov. 1708). At the same time, however, he had thoughts of getting ‘out of the way of the parties’ by becoming secretary to Lord Berkeley's proposed embassy to Vienna.

Meanwhile Swift was seeing much of Halifax, Addison, Steele, and Congreve. It was at the end of 1707 that he launched his famous joke against the astrologer John Partridge [q. v.] (1644–1715, for a full account of this performance). The name of Bickerstaff, under which he wrote, became famous, and was adopted by Steele for the ‘Tatler.’ He wrote some graver pamphlets: the ‘Argument to prove the inconvenience of abolishing Christianity,’ which showed that he could ridicule a deist as well as a papist or a presbyterian; a ‘Project for the Advancement of Religion,’ and the ‘Sentiments of a Church of England Man.’ In the ‘Project’ he suggested the plan adopted by Harley a little later for building fifty new churches in London. These pamphlets are remarkable as an exposition of his political principles at the time. He fully agrees with the whigs as accepting the ‘revolution principles,’ but holds that the state should vigorously support the church. The government therefore could not give the dissenters too ‘much ease nor trust them with too little power.’ The application of this principle to the Test Act is obvious, and is significant of Swift's position in the following months.

In October 1708 the Earl of Wharton was appointed lord lieutenant. Swift waited upon him to press the first-fruits application. Wharton put him off with ‘lame excuses,’ which were repeated when Swift made a second attempt with the help of Somers. Perceiving that Wharton would endeavour to abolish the test, Swift wrote a pamphlet, his ‘Letter on the Sacramental Test’ (December 1708), in which for the first time his power as a political writer was revealed. It is a fierce attack upon the claims put forward by the Irish presbyterians, and amounts to a declaration of war to the knife. Swift carefully concealed the authorship, even from his correspondent, Archbishop King. He even complains to King that the author ‘reflects upon me as a person likely to write for repealing the test’ (to King 6 Jan. 1708–9). This apparently refers to a passage not discoverable and suppressed in the reprint of 1711 (see, p. 250). The authorship, however, was suspected, according to Swift, by Wharton's secretary (Change of Ministry), and injured him with ministers. Swift in fact, while still hoping for preferment, was anonymously attacking a favourite measure of the advanced whigs. He was afterwards accused of having made an application to be Wharton's chaplain. Samuel Salter [q. v.] of the Charterhouse professed to have seen letters of Swift to Somers, and Somers's letters to Wharton, and reported Wharton's contemptuous answer: ‘We cannot countenance these fellows. We have not character