Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/126

90 pitched upon twenty members of both parties; but perhaps it may all come to nothing."

And afterward, in another letter, he says, "As for any academy to correct and settle our language, lord treasurer talked of it often very warmly; but I doubt is yet too busy until the peace be over."

Swift indeed soon found, that his eagerness to accomplish a point, which he had so much at heart, had made him push it at an improper season; not only as the hands of the ministry were full, but as he himself had work enough cut out for him of another kind. A numerous body of the whig writers were continually assaulting the ministry, with the utmost violence; and they relied, for their defence, on the single arm of their doughty champion, Swift.

On the other side, the two champions, on whom the whigs most depended, were bishop Burnet and Mr. Steele, (afterward sir Richard) well known to the world as writer of the greatest number of those ingenious essays, which appeared under the titles of the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians. They placed great hopes in two pamphlets, published about this time; one by bishop Burnet, under the title of An Introduction to the third Volume of his History of the Reformation: the other by Mr. Steele, called, The Crisis. These two were immediately answered by Swift, with such infinite humour, wit, ridicule, and strength of argument, as not only blunted the edge of those pieces, but lowered the consequence of the authors themselves so much, by raising the laugh strongly against them, as to deprive them of the