Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/135

Rh a most gracious princess, who had entrusted it to them. A ship's crew quarrelling in a storm, or while their enemies are within gunshot, is but a faint idea of this fatal infatuation; of which, although it be hard to say enough, some people may think perhaps I have already said too much."

From the above passages, it is clear that Swift was determined not to spare the incision knife on this occasion. And from the whole drift of the pamphlet, it is highly probable, he had discovered that both lord Oxford and lord Bolingbroke, had long since lost sight of the publick interest, which had at first cemented them, and had each no other object in view, but that of gratifying his ambition. It could not escape a man of his penetration, that they were in the condition of Pompey and Cæsar; whereof the one could not bear an equal, nor the other a superiour. He resolved therefore to separate himself from them both, and try what he could do apart for the publick interest. As he found private admonition ineffectual to persuade, he determined to try whether publick shame, and the fear of the total desertion of their party, might not compel them to a discharge of their duty. He pointed out the only means which could effectually put things once more on a proper footing; and as he well knew lord Oxford's unwillingness to pursue those means, he was resolved to drive him to it, through the fear of his being deserted otherwise both by his party, and the queen; which is evidently the tendency of the last paragraph in this piece. "To conclude: the only way of securing the constitution in church and state, and consequently this very protestant succession itself, will be the lessening the power of our Rh