Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/218

182 he would never see her again, unless she asked his pardon. In his Journal of March 27, 1711, he gives the following account of his resentment to lord Lansdown: "Society day, you know. We were never merrier nor better company, and did not part till after eleven. I did not summon lord Lansdown: he and I are fallen out. There was something in an Examiner a fortnight ago, that he thought reflected on the abuses in his office; (he is secretary at war) and he writ to the secretary, that he heard I had inserted that paragraph. This I resented highly, that he should complain of me, before he spoke to me. I sent him a peppering letter, and would not summon him by a note, as I did the rest; nor ever will have any thing to say to him, till he begs my pardon." Nay even with regard to his dear friend Addison, merely on account of his showing some suspicion of him, in a conversation relative to Steele, his conduct was the same; as may be seen in the following passage of his Journal. "I went to the coffeehouse, where I behaved myself coldly enough to Mr. Addison, and so came home to scribble. We dine together to morrow and next day, by invitation; but I shall not alter my behaviour to him, till he begs my pardon, or else we shall grow bare acquaintance."

I find an unwillingness to part with Swift at this period of his life, without showing him in all the various lights in which he then appeared. It is from his meridian height that we are to judge of the splendour and powerful influence of the sun; not from his feeble setting ray, obscured by mists, or intercepted by clouds. Yet it is in this last state only, he has hitherto been represented to the world, in