Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/158

122 men, by sending him, as he calls it, a biting answer. Whether it was this which exasperated Steele, or from whatever other cause it were, he some time after wrote a virulent paper in the Guardian against Swift, which produced some severe expostulations on his part, to be seen in the letters that passed between them on that occasion. Where, on Steele's part, we find the highest insolence, added to the basest ingratitude; as will immediately appear on a view of those letters. Swift, in one to Addison upon this subject, had said, "have I deserved this usage from Mr. Steele, who knows very well, that my lord treasurer has kept him in his employment, upon my entreaty and intercession?" This charge Steele answers in the most insulting manner, thus, "They laugh at you, if they make you believe your interposition has kept me thus long in office." To this Swift in his reply, says, "The case was thus: I did with the utmost application, and desiring to lay all my credit upon it, desire Mr. Harley (as he was then called) to show you mercy. He said he would, and wholly upon my account: that he would appoint you a day to see him; that he would not expect you should quit any friend or principle. Some days after, he told me he had appointed you a day, and you had not kept it; upon which he reproached me, as engaging for more than I could answer; and advised me to be more cautious another time. I told him, and desired my lord chancellor and lord Bolingbroke to be witnesses, that I never would speak for or against you, as long as I lived; only I would desire, and that it was still my opinion, you should have mercy, till you gave farther provocations. This is the history of what you think fit to call, in the spirit of insulting, their " laughing