Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/243

Rh ever refused me a request of that kind." He therefore thought it extremely hard, that after such instances of favour shown to numbers of that party, he should be particularly marked out as the chief object of their resentment: or, as he himself expresses it in the same letter, "If my friendship and conversation were equally shown among those who liked or disapproved the proceedings then at court, and that I was known to be a common friend of all deserving persons of the latter sort, when they were in distress; I cannot but think it hard, that I am not suffered to run quietly among the herd of people, whose opinions unfortunately differ from those which lead to favour and preferment." But Swift, by his great abilities exerted in the cause of the late ministry, had rendered himself so obnoxious to the new men in power, that even to be of his acquaintance, would, in those days, have been a sure bar to promotion. Of this, there is a singular instance communicated to me among other anecdotes taken down at that time by a friend of the dean's. Swift, in the height of party ferment, having some occasion to apply to sir Thomas Southwell, who was one of the commissioners of the revenue, and with whom he had lived on the footing of the greatest intimacy, was much shocked by an answer he made him: "I'll lay you a groat (a usual cant expression of sir Thomas's) Mr. dean, I don't know you." Some years after, when the spirit of party was a good deal abated, sir Thomas, who was then lord Southwell, riding on the strand, and observing the dean on horseback a little before him, lamented to one of his company the ill effects of party; among which he VOL. I.