Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/341

Rh not; and thus the affair would sometimes lie for several months together, although the thing were ever so reasonable, or even although the publick suffered by the delay. So that this minister had no other remedy but to let her majesty take her own time, which never failed to be the very longest that the nature of the thing could suffer her to defer it.

When this promotion was made, Mr. secretary St. John, whose merits and pretensions, as things then stood, were far superiour to any, was purposely left out, because the court had need of his great abilities, the following session, in the house of commons; and the peace being then upon the anvil, he was best able to explain and justify the several steps toward it; which he accordingly did, with invincible reason and universal applause. When the session was over, the queen thought fit to give him a title; and that he might not lose his rank, created him viscount. There had been an earldom in his name and family lately extinct, though a barony fell to a collateral branch in the person of an infant; and the secretary, being of the same house, expected and desired the same degree. For he reasoned, "that, making him a viscount, would be but rigorous justice; and he hoped he might pretend to some mark of favour." But the queen could not be prevailed with; because, to say the truth, he was not much at that time in her good graces; some women about the court having infused an opinion into her, that he was not so regular in his life as he ought to be. The secretary laid the whole blame of this disappointment upon the earl of Oxford; and freely told