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each other's houses, and were united by the name of Brother.

Being not immediately confidered as an obdurate Tory, he conversed indiscriminately with all the wits, and was yet the friend of Steele; who, in the Tatler, which began in 1710, confeffes the advantages of his conversation, and mentions fomething contributed by him to his paper. But he was now immerging into political controverfy; for the fame year produced the Examiner, of which Swift wrote thirty-three papers. In argument he may be allowed to have the advantage; for where a wide fyftem of conduct, and the whole of a publick character, is laid open to enquiry, the accufer having the choice of facts, must be very unfkilful if he does not prevail; but with regard to wit, I am afraid none of Swift's papers will be found equal to thofe by which Addison opposed him.

Early in the next year he published a Propofal for correcting, improving, and afcertaining the English Tongue, in a Letter to the Earl of Oxford; written without much

know

knowledge of the general nature of language, and without any accurate enquiry into the history of other tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience, he thinks attainable, he propofes to secure by inflituting an academy; the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud to disobey, and which, being renewed by fucceffive elections, would in a fhort time have differed from itself.

He wrote the same year a Letter to the October Club, a number of Tory Gentlemen fent from the country to Parliament, who formed themselves into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to animate the zeal and raise the expectations of each other. They thought, with great reason, that the Minifters were lofing opportunities; that fufficient ufe was not made of the general ardour of the nation; they called loudly for more changes, and stronger efforts; and demanded the punishment of part, and the difmiffion of the reft, of those whom they confidered as publick robbers.

Their

Their eagerness was not gratified by the Queen, or by Harley. The Queen was probably flow because she was afraid, and Harley was flow because he was doubtful; he was a tory only by neceffity, or for convenience; and when he had power in his hands, had no fettled purpose for which he should employ it; forced to gratify to a certain degree the Tories who supported him, but unwilling to make his reconcilement to the Whigs utterly defperate, he corresponded at once with the two expectants of the Crown, and kept, as has been obferved, the fucceffion undetermined. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing; and with the fate of a doubledealer, at laft he loft his power, but kept his enemies.

Swift feems to have concurred in opinion with the October Club; but it was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he ftimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows not whither to go, is in no hafte to move. Harley, who was perhaps not quick by nature, became yet more flow by irresolution; and was content to hear that dilatorinefs lamented as na

tural,

tural, which he applauded in himself as po litick.

Without the Tories, however, nothing could be done; and as they were not to be gratified, they must be appeased; and the conduct of the Minister, if it could not be vindicated, was to be plausibly excused.

Swift now attained the zenith of his political importance: he published (1712) the Conduct of the Allies, ten days before the Parliament affembled. The purpose was to perfuade the nation to a peace, and never had any writer more fuccefs. The people, who had been amused with bonfires and triumphal proceffions, and looked with idolatry on the General and his friends, who, as they thought, had made England the arbitress of nations, were confounded between fhame and rage, when they found that mines had been exhaufted, and millions deftroyed, to fecure the Dutch or aggrandize the emperor, without any advantage to ourselves; that we had been bribing our neighbours to fight their own quarrel; and that amongst our enemies we might number our allies.

That

That is now no longer doubted, of which the nation was then first informed, that the war was unneceffarily protracted to fill the pockets of Marlborough; and that it would have been continued without end, if he could have continued his annual plunder. But Swift, I fuppofe, did not yet know what he has fince written, that a commiffion was drawn which would have appointed him General for life, had it not become ineffectual by the refolution of Lord Cowper, who refused the feal.

Whatever is received, fay the fchools, is received in proportion to the recipient. The power of a political treatise depends much upon the difpofition of the people; the nation was then combustible, and a spark set it on fire. It is boasted, that between November and January eleven thousand were fold; a great number at that time, when we were not yet a nation of readers. To its propagation certainly no agency of power or influence was wanting. It furnished arguments for converfation, fpeeches for debate, and materials for parliamentary resolutions.

VOL. III.

D d

Yet,