Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/284

248 longer on this article, because it is the heaviest charge brought against Swift, and such as would at once destroy the integrity of his character: and because there never was any calumny more industriously propagated by the whole body of the whigs, or more generally believed. And this too not among the middling class of mankind, but by persons of high rank and character. Of which I have a remarkable instance now before me, in an anecdote communicated to me by Dr. Clarke, formerly my tutor in the college, among several others collected by him relative to Swift, which is as follows: "When lord Chesterfield was lord lieutenant of Ireland, I was present at his giving an account of Swift, which, from a less creditable author, would be utterly disbelieved. He said, that to his knowledge Swift made an offer of his pen to sir Robert Walpole: that the terms were, his getting a preferment in England, equal to what he had in Ireland; and that sir Robert rejected the offer; which lord Chesterfield said he would not have done, had he been in sir Robert's place. The whole of this transaction seems extremely improbable, particularly what he added, that the person who introduced him was the famous Chartres." Good Heavens! Swift brought by the notorious Chartres to prostitute himself to Walpole, and this asserted as a fact by lord Chesterfield! But his lordship kept very bad company in those days: I have not the least doubt but this story was told him by Chartres, and he considered his brother gambler as a man of honour.

Swift had set out for Ireland in the month of August, and early in the November following appeared Gulliver's Travels. As he had kept a found