Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/252

216 30, 1717, thus: "I have the favour of four letters from you, of the 9th, 13th, 16th, and 20th instant," and he concludes his letter thus: "Pray give my service to all friends in general. I think, as you have ordered the matter, you have made the greater part of Ireland list themselves under that number. I do not know how you can recompense them, but by coming over to help me correct the book which I promised them."

What an instance is here of the vicissitudes in human affairs, when a man who had been ambassador plenipotentiary to the court of France, should, in the space of a few years, be reduced to such a sorry expedient (as Swift terms it) to keep him above want!

During this period. Swift's pen seems to have been thrown aside, or employed only in trifles, except two tracts drawn up by him soon after his settlement in Ireland: the one, entitled, "Memoirs relating to that Change which happened in the Queen's Ministry in the Year 1710." Written in October 1714. The other, "An Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry, with relation to their Quarrels among themselves, and the Design charged upon them of altering the Succession of the Crown." His view in these was, to lay open all the springs which moved the political machine during that period; and to exonerate the ministry from that heavy charge, so loudly and generally made against them, of a design to bring in the pretender. As he was a man more in the confidence of that ministry, than any other in the world: of a sagacity not easily to be duped; a sincerity incapable of being biassed, and of most doubted