Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/178

142 And in the Preface to his History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne, he says, "I was so far from having any obligation to the crown, that, on the contrary, her majesty issued a proclamation, offering three hundred pounds to any person who would discover the author of a certain short treatise, which the queen well knew to have been written by me."

From all that has been offered upon this head, we may clearly deduce the reason why Swift remained such a length of time without any promotion, and may fairly exonerate lord Oxford from the charges made against him on that score. It is now evident, though before it was a secret to the world, that he had by no means that degree of power which he was supposed to enjoy, in any matter whatever; but in any point that did not fall in with her majesty's pleasure, he had none at all, much less therefore in such as she was set against. Among which number, that of the promotion of Dr. Swift, for the reasons abovementioned, seems to have been one. If, as he has related, "Her only objection against several clergymen, recommended to her for promotions in the church, was their being too violent in party;" how much more strongly must this have operated with regard to him, whose zeal in the cause he had espoused, transported him so beyond all bounds of moderation, as to keep no measures even with her, though he well knew her disposition. Of this he gave a strong proof in the Windsor Prophecy; the tendency of which was, to prevail on her majesty to remove the duchess of Somerset, the patroness of the whig cause, by the most bitter invectives on her character, from her post; and to receive