Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/92

78 obscurity, or rather giving new life to those stillborn, shapeless births, which but just appeared and perished. Nor do I remember any person to have so far gloried in those monstrous productions, as to own being a parent to them, but the renowned Dr. Hare. The close of his fourth letter of the "Management of the War" is indeed very extraordinary; where he tells, "If they should describe the duke of Marlborough to be a short, black, fattish, illshaped man, that loves to drink hard, never speaks to be understood, is extremely revengeful and illbred; if they should represent his mind to be a complication of all ill qualities," &c. Here is more malice, though less wit and truth, than any thing they accuse in the Examiner. In times of liberty and faction, we must expect that the best persons will be libelled; the difference lies in the skill of the libeller. One draws near the life; another must write the name under, or else we cannot understand: for, as yet I never met one person, that could find out who Dr. Hare designed, by his short, black, fattish, ill shaped man; though he has so far exceeded the liberty the Examiner has taken, as to pretend to paint the very lineaments of the body, as well as those of the mind.

Thus far you see what little reason our author has to complain for the duke of Marlborough's hard usage; but he grows bolder, and, in just despair of the continuation of a war from which he reaps so many advantages, attacks what (notwithstanding the many refinements of some late patriots) I take still to be an undoubted prerogative of the crown, the power of