Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/434

426 thumb not proving strong enough to stop the general torrent, there was a universal change made in the ministry; and the two new secretaries, not thinking it decent to employ a man in their office who had acted so infamous a part, Mr. Steele, to avoid being discarded, thought fit to resign his place of gazetteer. Upon which occasion, I cannot forbear relating a passage "to you, Mr. Bailiff, and the rest of the borough," which discovers a very peculiar turn of thought in this gentleman you have chosen to represent you. When Mr. Maynwaring recommended him to the employment of gazetteer, Mr. Harley, out of an inclination to encourage men of parts, raised that office from fifty pounds to three hundred pounds a year. Mr. Steele, according to form, came to give his new patron thanks; but the secretary, who would rather confer a hundred favours, than receive acknowledgments for one, said to him, in a most obliging manner, "Pray, sir, do not thank me; but thank Mr. Maynwaring." Soon after Mr. Steele's quitting that employment, he complained to a gentleman in office, of the hardship put upon him in being forced to quit his place: that he knew Mr. Harley was the cause; that he never had done Mr. Harley any injury, nor received any obligation from him. The gentleman, amazed at this discourse, put him in mind of those libels published in his Tatlers. Mr. Steele said, he was only the publisher, for they had been sent him by other hands. The gentleman thinking this a very monstrous kind of excuse, and not allowing it, Mr. Steele then said, "Well, I have libelled him, and he has turned me out; and so we are equal." But