Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/27

Rh arose, bent upon sullying his fair fame, who, opening the channels of calumny, long covered over by time, and raking in them with a friendly industry, once more brought their foul contents to light. Nor was it an enemy that did this, but one who professed himself Swift's friend, and who was, during his lifetime, his greatest flatterer; I mean John earl of Orrery.

The cruel manner in which he has treated the memory of his friend Swift, as his lordship in the course of the work often affects to call him, had something so surprising in it, that people were at a loss how to account for it, except by supposing it to proceed from some uncommon degree of malevolence in his lordship's nature. But though he cannot be wholly cleared from an imputation of that sort, yet I am persuaded that his chief motive to it was not quite of so black a die. His father had, in his will, bequeathed his library from him; and this circumstance made the world conclude that he looked upon his son as a blockhead. This stung the young man to the quick; and we may see how deep an impression it made on him, by the account he gives of it in one of his letters to his son. It seems to have been the chief object of his life afterward, to wipe away this stigma, and convince the world of the injustice done him, by publishing some work that might do him credit as a writer. Conscious of his want of genius to produce any thing original, he applied himself diligently to a translation of Pliny's Letters; but he was so long about this task, and put it into so many hands to correct it, that Melmoth's excellent translation of the same work, slipped into the world before his, and forestalled this avenue to fame.