Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/65

Rh several circumstances of the expense of this intended pageantry, and of the persons who promoted it; the court, apprehensive of a design to inflame the common people, thought fit to order, that the several figures should be seized as popish trinkets; and guards were ordered to patrole, for preventing any tumultuous assemblies. Whether this frolick were only intended for an affront to the court, or whether it had a deeper meaning, I must leave undetermined. The duke, in his own nature, is not much turned to be popular; and in his flourishing times, whenever he came back to England upon the close of a campaign, he rather affected to avoid any concourse of the mobile, if they had been disposed to attend him: therefore, so very contrary a proceeding at this juncture, made it suspected as if he had a design to have placed himself at their head. "France," "Popery," "The Pretender," "Peace without Spain," were the words to be given about at this mock parade; and if what was confidently asserted be true, that a report was to have been spread at the same time of the queen's death, no man can tell what might have been the event.

But this attempt, to whatever purposes intended, proving wholly abortive, by the vigilance of those in power, the duke's arrival was without any noise or consequence; and upon consulting with his friends, he soon fell in with their new scheme for preventing the peace. It was believed by many persons, that the ministers might with little difficulty have brought him over, if they had pleased to make a trial; for, as he would probably have accepted any terms, to continue in a station of such prodigious profit, so there was sufficient room to work upon his fears, of which