Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/269

 upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass, and he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. — In short he was, like Mr. Wood, all over brass, and he defied the armies of the living God. — Goliah's conditions of combat, were likewise the same with those of Wood: if he prevail against us, then shall we be his servants. But if it happens that I prevail over him, I renounce the other part of the condition; he shall never be a servant of mine; for I do not think him fit to be trusted in any honest man's shop."

Nothing showed the generalship of Swift in a higher point of view, during this contest, than his choice of ground both for attack and defence. He well knew of what importance it was to steer clear of party; and that if he had attacked the British minister as the real author, promoter, and abettor of this project, he would immediately have been stigmatized with the name of jacobite, and his writings of course disregarded. He therefore treated the matter all along as if there were no parties concerned but William Wood hardwareman, on the one side; and the whole kingdom of Ireland on the other. Or, as he himself expresses it, it was bellum atque virum, a kingdom on one side, and William Wood on the other. Nay he went farther, and finding that Wood in his several publications had often made use of Mr. Walpole's name, he takes upon him the defence of the latter in several passages of his fourth letter, which he concludes thus: "But I will now demonstrate, beyond all contradiction, that Mr. Walpole is against this project of Mr. Wood, and is an entire friend to Ireland, " only