while he resided here? If I must be crushed, sir, for God's sake let some reason be alledged for it; or else an ingenuous confession made, that stat pro ratione voluntas. If you can fix Mr. Watkins to any final determination on this subject, you will do me a singular service, and I shall take my measures accordingly. Though I know your power, I cannot help distrusting it on this occasion. Before I conclude, give me leave to put you in mind of beating my thanks into my lord Bolingbroke's ears, for his late generosity, to the end that his lordship may be wearied out of the evil habit he has got, of heaping more obligations and goodness on those he is pleased to favour, than their shoulders are able to bear. For my own part, I have so often thanked his lordship, that I have now no more ways left to turn my thoughts; and beg if you have any right good compliments neat and fine by you, that you will advance the necessary, and place them, with the other helps you have given me, to my account ; which I question not but I shall be able to acknowledge at one and the same time, ad Græcas calendas.

In the mean time, I shall do my best to give you just such hints as you desire by the next post; though I cannot but think there are some letters in the office, which would serve your turn a good deal better than any thing I can tell you about the people: at the Hague. Your access there abundantly prevents my attempting to write you any news from hence. And I assure you, sir, you can write me none from England (however uneasy my circumstances are) which will be so agreeable as that of your long-expected advancement. It grieves me to

the

the soul, that a person, who has been so instrumental to the raising of me from obscurity and distress, should not be yet set above the power of fortune, and the malice of those enemies your real merit has created. I beg, dear sir, the continuance of your kind care and inspection over me; and that you would in all respects command, reprove, or instruct me, as a father; for I protest to you, sir, I do, and ever shall, honour and regard you with the affection of a son.

TO THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND.

MADAM,

DEC. 20, 1712.

ANY other person, of less refinement and prudence than myself, would be at a loss how to thank your grace, upon the surprise of coming home last night, and finding two pictures* where only one was demanded. But I understand your grace's malice, and do here affirm you to be the greatest prude upon earth. You will not so much as let your picture be alone in a room with a man, no not with a clergyman, and a clergyman of five-and-forty: and therefore resolved my lord duke should accompany it, and keep me in awe, that I might not presume to look too often upon it. For my own part, I begin already to repent that I ever begged your

* "The duchess of Ormond promised me her picture; and coming home to-night, I found her's and the duke's both in my chamber." Journal to Stella, Dec. 18, 1712. N.

grace's

grace's picture; and could almost find in my heart to send it you back: for, although it be the most beautiful sight I ever beheld, except the original, yet the veneration and respect it fills me with, will always make me think I am in your grace's presence; will hinder me from saying and writing twenty idle things that used to divert me: will set me labouring upon majestick, sublime ideas, at which I have no manner of talent; and will make those who come to visit me, think I am grown, on the sudden, wonderful stately and reserved. But, in life we must take the evil with the good; and it is one comfort, that I know how to be revenged. For the sight of your grace's resemblance will perpetually remind me of paying my duty to your person; which will give your grace the torment, and me the felicity, of a more frequent attendance.

your

But, after all, to deal plainly with your grace, your picture (and I must say the same of my lord duke's) will be of very little use, farther than to let others see the honour you are pleased to do me: for all the accomplishments of mind and person are so deeply printed in the heart, and represent you so lively to my imagination, that I should take it for a high affront, if you believed it in the power of colours to refresh my memory: almost as high a one, as if your grace should deny me the justice of being, with the most profound respect and gratitude, madam,

Your grace's, &c.

JON. SWIFT.

TO ARCHBISHOP KING.

MY LORD,

LONDON, JAN. 3, 1712-13.

SINCE I had the honour of your grace's letter, we have had a dead time of news and politicks ; and I make a conscience of writing to you without something that will recompense the trouble of reading. I cannot but grant that your grace, who are at a distance, and argue from your own wisdom and general observations and reading, is likely to be more impartial than I, who, in spite of my resolutions and opinion to the contrary, am forced to converse only with one side of the world, which fastens prejudices to me, notwithstanding all I can do to avoid them. Your grace has certainly hit upon the weak side of our peace; but I do not find you have prescribed any remedies. For, that of limiting France to a certain number of ships and troops, was, I doubt, not to be compassed. While that mighty kingdom remains under one monarch, it will be always in some degree formidable to its neighbours. But we flatter ourselves it is likely to be less so than ever, by the concurrence of many circumstances too long to trouble you with. But, my lord, what is to be done? I will go so far with your grace as to tell you, that some of our friends are of opinion with the other party, that if this last campaign had gone on with the conjunction of the British troops, France might have been in danger of being driven to great extremes. Yet I confess to you, at the same time, that if I had been first minister, I VOL. X. should

U

should have advised the

queen to

pursue her measures

toward a peace.

Some accidents and occasions have put it in my way to know every step of this treaty better, I think, than any man in England. And I do assert to your grace, that if France had been closely pushed this campaign, they would, upon our refusal, have made offers to Holland, which the republick would certainly have accepted; and in that case the interests of England would have been wholly laid aside, as we saw it three years ago at the Hague and Gertruydenberg. The marshal d'Uxilles and Mesnager, two of the French plenipotentiaries, were wholly inclined to have begun by the Dutch; but the third, abbé de Polignac, who has most credit with monsieur Torcy, was for beginning by England.

There was a great faction in France by this proceeding and it was a mere personal resentment, in the French king and monsieur Torcy, against the States, which hindered them from sending the first overture there. And I believe your grace will be convinced, by considering that the demands of Holland might be much more easily satisfied, than those of Britain. The States were very indifferent about the article of Spain being in the Bourbon family, as monsieur Buys publickly owned when he was here, and among others to myself. They valued not the demolition of Dunkirk, the frontier of Portugal, nor the security of Savoy. They abhorred the thoughts of our having Gibraltar and Minorca, nor cared what became of our dominions in North America. All they had at heart was the sovereignty of Flanders, under the name of a barrier, and to stipulate what they could for the em