Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/127

Rh the power of doing future mischief. We may judge of the effect which those two pamphlets must have produced at that critical time, when we consider with what delight they are read at this day, on account of their intrinsick merit, though we are little interested with regard to the events which gave them birth. This indeed distinguishes Swift's political tracts from all others; that these were written for a day; his, for perpetuity: they borrowed their chief merit from circumstances and times; his, from the immensity of his genius; their chief value arose from fashion, his, from weight. And he seems to have had the same advantage over his antagonists, as Homer has given to Achilles, by clothing him in celestial armour, and furnishing him with weapons of ethereal temper.

It may perhaps seem surprising, that after so many and such important services, Swift should have remained so long without preferment, or reward of any kind; and the ministry have on that account, been charged with ingratitude toward him. But they were far from being unmindful of his merits, and had recommended him to the queen to fill a vacant bishoprick. But the duchess of Somerset, who entertained an implacable hatred against him, determined to move Heaven and earth to prevent his promotion taking place. She first prevailed on the archbishop of York to oppose it, whose remarkable expression to the queen was, That her majesty should be sure that the man whom she was going to make a bishop, was a Christian. But as he could give no better colour for this surmise, than that Swift was supposed to be the author of the Tale of a Tub, the bishop was considered as acting officiously,