Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/415

 the work you had to do; having let slip the opportunity of cultivating those dispositions she had got after her sickness at Windsor. I never left pressing my lord Oxford with the utmost earnestness (and perhaps more than became me) that we might be put in such a condition, as not to lie at mercy on this great event: and I am your lordship's witness, that you have nothing to answer for in that matter. I will, for once, talk in my trade, and tell you, that I never saw any thing more resemble our proceedings, than a man of fourscore, or in a deep consumption, going on in his sins, although his physician assured him he could not live a week. Those wonderful refinements, of keeping men in expectation, and not letting your friends be too strong, might be proper in their season — Sed nunc non erat his locus. Besides, you kept your bread and butter till it was too stale for any body to care for it. Thus your machine of four years modelling is dashed to pieces in a moment: and, as well by the choice of the regents as by their proceedings, I do not find there is any intention of managing you in the least. The whole nineteen On the demise of the queen, the following were lords of the regency, until the arrival of George I from Hanover: archbishop Tennison; lord Harcourt, lord chancellor; the duke of Buckingham, president of the council; the duke of Shrewsbury, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and lord high treasurer of England; the earl of Dartmouth, lord privy seal; the earl of Strafford, first lord commissioner of the admiralty; and sir Thomas Parker, lord chief justice of the king's bench; who were appointed by act of parliament. To which the

elector of Hanover was pleased to add the following; the archbishop of York, the dukes of Somerset, Bolton, Devonshire, Kent, Argyll, Montrose, and Roxburgh; the earls consist either of the highest partymen, or (which