Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/35

Rh paintings to be seen at the optician's in St. Paul's churchyard, where we behold some scattered and distorted features, covered with blotches of various colours, so that we cannot discover what it is intended to represent: till, by the application of a cylindrical mirror, we are surprised to see start forth, a face of the finest proportioned features, and most beautiful complexion. By such an application of the mirror of truth I hope to show Swift in a similar light.

I have long wished for leisure to set about this task, which a life spent in a variety of laborious occupations has hitherto prevented. And even now I am obliged to suspend pursuits of more advantageous kind with regard to myself, in order to accomplish it. But, reflecting, at this advanced period of life, on the near approaches of old age, which might soon disqualify me from carrying my design into execution, I determined to postpone all other considerations, that might stand in the way of an object I have had so much at heart. The love I had to his person, and the reverence in which I was taught, from my earliest days, to hold his character, and with which I had an opportunity of being well acquainted, on account of the long intimacy subsisting between him and my father; and, above all, the means I have in my power of rescuing his good name from the aspersions thrown on it by foulmouthed calumny, have made me think it an indispensable duty, no longer to delay doing justice to his memory. From the above acknowledgment of my early prepossessions in his favour, it may be thought that I shall prove not an unprejudiced historian: but, though I am conscious to myself that I shall never be VOL. I