Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/86

64 last undeceived and reconciled to her, yet I lost all credit with him, and found my interest decline very fast with the emperor himself, who was indeed too much governed by that favourite.

EFORE I proceed to give an account of my leaving this kingdom, it may be proper to inform the reader, of a private intrigue, which had been for two months forming against me.

I had been hitherto, all my life, a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers; but never expected to have found such terrible effects of them, in so remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe.

When I was just preparing to pay my attendance on the emperor of Blefuscu, a considerable person at court (to whom I had been very serviceable, at a time when he lay under the highest displeasure of his imperial majesty) came to my house very privately at night, in a close chair, and, without sending his name, desired admittance: the chairmen were