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 business to paint in the darkest colours what he deemed an injustice done to a whole country. The Drapier's Letters, which were sold by the Flying Stationers for two pence in the streets of Dublin, had their due effect. They forced the government to withdraw Wood's ha'pence, and they set Swift, who, in Pope's phrase, had unbound "Ireland's copper chains," upon the topmost pinnacle of glory.

Henceforth he was the idol of the Irish people. Once when he returned from London to Dublin, bonfires were lit in his honour, and peals of bells rang out their welcome. In vain did Walpole and the Whigs clamour for his arrest. They were asked if they had 1 0,000 men to spare, for assuredly the Dean could not be taken with less. The utmost that Swift's enemies dared to do was to throw the printer into jail, though the secret of authorship was so ill kept that the whole of Dublin knew that it was Swift's hand and none other that had written The Drapiers Letters. A verse which was sent broadcast over the town, and which 29