Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/141

Rh for some reasons that are purely personal to myself; it having been objected by several of those poor pamphleteers, who have blotted so much paper to show their malice against me, that I was a favourer of the low party. Whereas it has been manifest to all men, that during the highest dominion of that faction, I had published several tracts in opposition to the measures then taken. For instance, A Project for the Reformation of Manners, in a Letter to the Countess of Berkeley; The Sentiments of a Church of England Man; An Argument against abolishing Christianity; and, lastly, A Letter to a Member of Parliament, against taking off the Test in Ireland, which I have already mentioned to have been published at the time the earl of Wharton was setting out to his government of that kingdom."

The same cry about quitting the whigs was raised against him in Ireland, of which he takes the following notice, in his Journal to Stella. "Why should the whigs think I came to England to leave them? sure my journey was no secret. I protest sincerely I did all I could to hinder it, as the dean can tell you, although now I do not repent it. But who the devil cares what they think? Am I under obligations in the least to any of them all? Rot them, for ungrateful dogs, I'll make them repent their usage before I leave this place. They say here the same thing of my leaving the whigs; but they own they cannot blame me, considering the treatment I have had."

On his arrival in London, he says, "The whigs are ravished to see me, and would lay hold on me as a twig, while they are drowning, and the great " men