Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/304

296 excellency their suspicions; whereupon I saw him no more until I went to Ireland. At my taking leave of lord Somers, he desired I would carry a letter from him to the earl of Wharton, which I absolutely refused; yet he ordered it to be left at my lodgings. I staid some months in Leicestershire, went to Ireland; and immediately upon my landing, retired to my country parish, without seeing the lieutenant, or any other person; resolving to send him lord Somers's letter by the post. But, being called up to town, by the incessant intreaties of my friends, I went and delivered my letter, and immediately withdrew. During the greatest part of his government, I lived in the country, saw the lieutenant very seldom when I came to town, nor ever entered into the least degree of confidence with him, or his friends, except his secretary Mr. Addison, who had been my old and intimate acquaintance. Upon the news of great changes here, he affected very much to caress me; which I understood well enough to have been an old practice with him, in order to render men odious to the church party.

I mention these insignificant particulars, as it will be easily judged, for some reasons that are purely personal to myself, it having been objected by several of those poor pamphleteers, who have blotted so much paper to show their malice against me, that I was a favourer of the low party: whereas it has been manifest to all men, that, during the highest dominion of that faction, I had published several tracts in opposition to the measures then taken; for instance, A Project for the Reformation of Manners, in a Letter to the Countess of Berkeley; The