Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/365

Rh Before this violent dissension had shattered the Ministry, Swift had published, in the beginning of the year (1714), “The publick Spirit of the Whigs,” in answer to “The Crisis,” a pamphlet for which Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Swift was now so far alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to decency, and therefore treats him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes with abhorrence.

In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms so provoking to that irritable nation, that resolving “not to be offended with impunity,” the Scotch Lords in a body demanded an audience of the Queen, and solicited reparation. A proclamation was issued, in which three hundred pounds was offered for discovery of the author. From this storm he was, as he relates, “secured by a sleight;” of what kind or by whose prudence, is not known; and such was the increase of his reputation, that the Scottish “Nation applied again that he would be their friend.”

He was become so formidable to the Whigs, that his familiarity with the Ministers was clamoured at in Parliament, particularly by two