Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/544

508 know not whether she had not, in her turn, some reason for complaint. A letter was sent her, not so much entreating, as requiring her patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious Irishwoman, who was then begging subscriptions for her poems. To this letter was subscribed the name of Swift, and it has all the appearances of his diction and sentiments; but it was not written in his hand, and had some little improprieties. When he was charged with this letter, he laid hold of the inaccuracies, and urged the improbability of the accusation; but never denied it: he shuffles between cowardice and veracity, and talks big when he says nothing." In answer to which, I am tempted to lay before the reader Swift's defence of himself, though set down in a former place, lest it might have escaped his observation. To a letter from his friend Pope, enclosing one of those forged ones, he makes the following reply: "As for those three letters you mention, supposed all to be written by me to the queen, on Mrs. Barber's account, especially the letter which bears my name, I can only say, that the apprehensions one may be apt to have of a friend's doing a foolish thing, is an effect of kindness; and God knows who is free from playing the fool some time or other. But in such a degree, as to write to the queen, who has used me ill without any cause, and to write in such a manner as the letter you sent me, and in such a style, and to have such a zeal for one almost a stranger, and to make such a description of a woman, as to prefer her before all mankind; and to instance it as one of the greatest grievances of Ireland, that her majesty has not encouraged Mrs. Barber, a woollendraper's wife " clined