Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/232

196 of affairs at that time, when you wrote that false envious paragraph! and how utterly unacquainted must you have been with the real character of the man, whose memoirs you undertook to write, when you could suppose him so mean spirited as to be the mere tool of a ministry; and so blinded by vanity (a fault of which he had not one particle in his composition, for, as he himself has often observed, he was too proud to be vain) as not to discover whether he was only employed, not trusted! Nor was his influence confined to England only, he was the chief person consulted in the affairs of Ireland, particularly during the duke of Ormond's administration, and few preferments passed, especially in the church, without his approbation. Of this there are many proofs to be found in his correspondence with the archbishop of Dublin, primate Lindsay, lord chancellor Phipps, and his own Journal.

Having now, past all controversy, established the high degree of power and influence which he then enjoyed, beyond any that perhaps ever fell to the lot of a private person, must not the disinterested spirit Rh