Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/165

Rh. I believe it will be worth three hundred pounds a year to them. This is the third employment I have got for them. Rivers told them the doctor commanded him, and he durst not refuse." And in the next page, he says, "I was this morning again with lord Rivers, and have made him give the other employment to my printer and bookseller; 'tis worth a great deal." His bookseller was Tooke, and his printer, Barber, afterward lord mayor of London. As they were both very honest men, and ran great risks in publishing some of his bolder pieces, for which Barber was also taken into custody, he thought he could not reward their services and fidelity too highly; and we find, upon the whole, he procured employments for them, to the amount of nearly two thousand pounds a year. This was the foundation of Barber's fortune, which he always acknowledged, with the highest gratitude, and to the last made every return in his power to his great patron. The expression of lord Rivers, "that the doctor commanded him, and he durst not refuse," was literally true; not only with regard to him, but to all the ministry, who seemed to look up to him as to one of a superiour class of mortals, both on account of his amazing talents, and that noble quality of perfect disinterestedness, perhaps not to be parallelled in his time, and rarely to be found in the annals of history. This gave such a dignity to his character, and such a weight to his recommendations, that it does not appear he ever failed in any. And indeed it would have been strange, that the men in power should have refused any requests of that sort, which tended highly to Rh