Swift

CHAPTER V.

THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION.

In the autumn of 1710 Swift was approaching the end of his forty-third year. A man may well feel at forty-two that it is high time that a post should have been a.s.signed to him. Should an opportunity be then, and not till then, put in his way, he feels that he is throwing for heavy stakes; and that failure, if failure should follow, would be irretrievable. Swift had been longing vainly for an opening. In the remarkable letter (of April, 1722) from which I have quoted the anecdote of the lost fish, he says that, "all my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only for want of a great t.i.tle and fortune, that I might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of my parts; whether right or wrong is no great matter; and so the reputation of wit or great learning does the office of a blue riband or of a coach and six horses." The phrase betrays Swift"s scornful self-mockery; that inverted hypocrisy which led him to call his motives by their worst names, and to disavow what he might have been sorry to see denied by others. But, like all that Swift says of himself, it also expresses a genuine conviction. Swift was ambitious, and his ambition meant an absolute need of imposing his will upon others. He was a man born to rule; not to affect thought, but to control conduct. He was therefore unable to find full occupation, though he might seek occasional distraction, in literary pursuits. Archbishop King, who had a strange knack of irritating his correspondent--not, it seems, without intention--annoyed Swift intensely in 1711 by advising him (most superfluously) to get preferment, and with that view to write a serious treatise upon some theological question. Swift, who was in the thick of his great political struggle, answered that it was absurd to ask a man floating at sea what he meant to do when he got ash.o.r.e. "Let him get there first and rest and dry himself, and then look about him." To find firm footing amidst the welter of political intrigues, was Swift"s first object. Once landed in a deanery he might begin to think about writing; but he never attempted, like many men in his position, to win preferment through literary achievements. To a man of such a temperament, his career must so far have been cruelly vexatious. We are generally forced to judge of a man"s life by a few leading incidents; and we may be disposed to infer too hastily that the pa.s.sions roused on those critical occasions coloured the whole tenor of every-day existence. Doubtless Swift was not always fretting over fruitless prospects. He was often eating his dinner in peace and quiet, and even amusing himself with watching the Moor Park rooks or the Laracor trout. Yet it is true that so far as a man"s happiness depends upon the consciousness of a satisfactory employment of his faculties, whether with a view to glory or solid comfort, Swift had abundant causes of discontent. The "conjured spirit" was still weaving ropes of sand. For ten years he had been dependent upon Temple, and his struggles to get upon his own legs had been fruitless: on Temple"s death he managed when past thirty to wring from fortune a position of bare independence, not of satisfying activity, he had not gained a fulcrum from which to move the world, but only a bare starting-point whence he might continue to work. The promises from great men had come to nothing. He might perhaps have realized them, could he have consented to be faithless to his dearest convictions; the consciousness that he had so far sacrificed his position to his principles gave him no comfort, though it nourished his pride. His enforced reticence produced an irritation against the ministers whom it had been intended to conciliate, which deepened into bitter resentment for their neglect. The year and a half pa.s.sed in Ireland during 1709-10 was a period in which his day-dreams must have had a background of disappointed hopes. "I stayed above half the time," he says, "in one scurvy acre of ground, and I always left it with regret." He shut himself up at Laracor, and nourished a growing indignation against the party represented by Wharton.

Yet events were moving rapidly in England, and opening a new path for his ambition. The Whigs were in full possession of power, though at the price of a growing alienation of all who were weary of a never-ending war, or hostile to the Whig policy in Church and State. The leaders, though warned by Somers, fancied that they would strengthen their position by attacking the defeated enemy. The prosecution of Sacheverell in the winter of 1709-10, if not directed by personal spite, was meant to intimidate the high-flying Tories. It enabled the Whig leaders to indulge in a vast quant.i.ty of admirable const.i.tutional rhetoric; but it supplied the High Church party with a martyr and a cry, and gave the needed impetus to the growing discontent. The queen took heart to revolt against the Marlboroughs; the Whig Ministry were turned out of office; Harley became Chancellor of the Exchequer in August; and the parliament was dissolved in September, 1710, to be replaced in November by one in which the Tories had an overwhelming majority.

We are left to guess at the feelings with which Swift contemplated these changes. Their effect upon his personal prospects was still problematical.

In spite of his wrathful retirement, there was no open breach between him and the Whigs. He had no personal relations with the new possessors of power. Harley and St. John, the two chiefs, were unknown to him. And, according to his own statement, he started for England once more with great reluctance in order again to take up the weary Firstfruits negociation. Wharton, whose hostility had intercepted the proposed bounty, went with his party, and was succeeded by the High Church Duke of Ormond.

The political aspects were propitious for a renewed application, and Swift"s previous employment pointed him out as the most desirable agent.

And now Swift suddenly comes into full light. For two or three years we can trace his movements day by day; follow the development of his hopes and fears; and see him more clearly than he could be seen by almost any of his contemporaries. The famous _Journal to Stella_, a series of letters written to Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, from September, 1710, till April, 1713, is the main and central source of information. Before telling the story, a word or two may be said of the nature of this doc.u.ment, one of the most interesting that ever threw light upon the history of a man of genius. The _Journal_ is one of the very few that were clearly written without the faintest thought of publication. There is no indication of any such intention in the _Journal to Stella_. It never occurred to Swift that it could ever be seen by any but the persons primarily interested.

The journal rather shuns politics; they will not interest his correspondent, and he is afraid of the post-office clerks--then and long afterwards often employed as spies. Interviews with ministers have scarcely more prominence than the petty incidents of his daily life. We are told that he discussed business, but the discussion is not reported.

Much more is omitted which might have been of the highest interest. We hear of meetings with Addison; not a phrase of Addison"s is vouchsafed to us; we go to the door of Harley or St. John; we get no distinct vision of the men who were the centres of all observation. Nor, again, are there any of those introspective pa.s.sages which give to some journals the interest of a confession. What, then, is the interest of the _Journal to Stella_?

One element of strange and singular fascination, to be considered hereafter, is the prattle with his correspondent. For the rest, our interest depends in great measure upon the reflections with which we must ourselves clothe the bare skeleton of facts. In reading the _Journal to Stella_ we may fancy ourselves waiting in a parliamentary lobby during an excited debate. One of the chief actors hurries out at intervals; pours out a kind of hasty bulletin; tells of some thrilling incident, or indicates some threatening symptom; more frequently he seeks to relieve his anxieties by indulging in a little personal gossip, and only interjects such comments upon politics as can be compressed into a hasty e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, often, as may be supposed, of the imprecatory kind. Yet he unconsciously betrays his hopes and fears; he is fresh from the thick of the fight, and we perceive that his nerves are still quivering, and that his phrases are glowing with the ardour of the struggle. Hopes and fears are long since faded, and the struggle itself is now but a war of phantoms. Yet with the help of the _Journal_ and contemporary doc.u.ments, we can revive for the moment the decaying images, and cheat ourselves into the momentary persuasion that the fate of the world depends upon Harley"s success, as we now hold it to depend upon Mr. Gladstone"s.

Swift reached London on September 7th, 1710; the political revolution was in full action, though Parliament was not yet dissolved. The Whigs were "ravished to see him;" they clutched at him, he says, like drowning men at a twig, and the great men made him their "clumsy apologies." G.o.dolphin was "short, dry and morose;" Somers tried to make explanations, which Swift received with studied coldness. The ever-courteous Halifax gave him dinners; and asked him to drink to the resurrection of the Whigs, which Swift refused unless he would add "to their reformation." Halifax persevered in his attentions, and was always entreating him to go down to Hampton Court; "which will cost me a guinea to his servants, and twelve shillings coach hire, and I will see him hanged first." Swift, however, retained his old friendship with the wits of the party; dined with Addison at his retreat in Chelsea, and sent a trifle or two to the _Tatler_. The elections began in October; Swift had to drive through a rabble of Westminster electors, judiciously agreeing with their sentiments to avoid dead cats and broken gla.s.ses; and though Addison was elected ("I believe,"

says Swift, "if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused"), the Tories were triumphant in every direction. And meanwhile, the Tory leaders were delightfully civil.

On the 4th of October Swift was introduced to Harley, getting himself described (with undeniable truth) "as a discontented person, who was ill used for not being Whig enough." The poor Whigs lamentably confess, he says, their ill usage of him, "but I mind them not." Their confession came too late. Harley had received him with open arms, and won not only Swift"s adhesion, but his warm personal attachment. The fact is indisputable, though rather curious. Harley appears to us as a shifty and feeble politician, an inarticulate orator, wanting in principles and resolution, who made it his avowed and almost only rule of conduct that a politician should live from hand to mouth.[21] Yet his prolonged influence in Parliament seems to indicate some personal attraction, which was perceptible to his contemporaries, though rather puzzling to us. All Swift"s panegyrics leave the secret in obscurity. Harley seems indeed to have been eminently respectable and decorously religious, amiable in personal intercourse, and able to say nothing in such a way as to suggest profundity instead of emptiness. His reputation as a party manager was immense; and is partly justified by his quick recognition of Swift"s extraordinary qualifications. He had inferior scribblers in his pay, including, as we remember with regret, the shifty Defoe. But he wanted a man of genuine ability and character. Some months later the ministers told Swift that they had been afraid of none but him; and resolved to have him.

They got him. Harley had received him "with the greatest kindness and respect imaginable." Three days later (Oct. 7th) the firstfruits business is discussed, and Harley received the proposals as warmly as became a friend of the Church, besides overwhelming Swift with civilities. Swift is to be introduced to St. John; to dine with Harley next Tuesday; and after an interview of four hours, the minister sets him down at St James"s Coffee-house in a hackney coach. "All this is odd and comical!" exclaims Swift; "he knew my Christian name very well," and, as we hear next day, begged Swift to come to him often, but not to his levee: "that was not a place for friends to meet." On the 10th of October, within a week from the first introduction, Harley promises to get the firstfruits business, over which the Whigs had haggled for years, settled by the following Sunday.

Swift"s exultation breaks out. On the 14th he declares that he stands ten times better with the new people than ever he did with the old, and is forty times more caressed. The triumph is sharpened by revenge. Nothing, he says of the sort was ever compa.s.sed so soon; "and purely done by my personal credit with Mr. Harley, who is so excessively obliging, that I know not what to make of it, unless to show the rascals of the other side that they used a man unworthily who deserved better." A pa.s.sage on Nov.

8th sums up his sentiments. "Why," he says in answer to something from Stella, "should the Whigs think I came from Ireland to leave them? Sure my journey was no secret! I protest sincerely, I did all I could to hinder it, as the dean can tell you, though now I do not repent it. But who the devil cares what they think? Am I under obligations in the least to any of them all? Rot them for ungrateful dogs; I will make them repent their usage before I leave this place." The thirst for vengeance may not be edifying; the political zeal was clearly not of the purest; but in truth, Swift"s party prejudices and his personal resentments are fused into indissoluble unity. Hatred of Whig principles and resentment of Whig "ill-usage" of himself, are one and the same thing. Meanwhile, Swift was able (on Nov. 4) to announce his triumph to the Archbishop. He was greatly annoyed by an incident, of which he must also have seen the humorous side.

The Irish bishops had bethought themselves after Swift"s departure that he was too much of a Whig to be an effective solicitor. They proposed therefore to take the matter out of his hands and apply to Ormond, the new Lord Lieutenant. Swift replied indignantly; the thing was done, however, and he took care to let it be known that the whole credit belonged to Harley, and of course, in a subordinate sense, to himself. Official formalities were protracted for months longer, and formed one excuse for Swift"s continued absence from Ireland; but we need not trouble ourselves with the matter further.

Swift"s unprecedented leap into favour meant more than a temporary success. The intimacy with Harley and with St. John rapidly developed.

Within a few months, Swift had forced his way into the very innermost circle of official authority. A notable quarrel seems to have given the final impulse to his career. In February, 1711, Harley offered him a fifty-pound note. This was virtually to treat him as a hireling instead of an ally. Swift resented the offer as an intolerable affront. He refused to be reconciled without ample apology, and after long entreaties. His pride was not appeased for ten days, when the reconciliation was sealed by an invitation from Harley to a Sat.u.r.day dinner.[22] On Sat.u.r.days, the Lord Keeper (Harcourt) and the Secretary of State (St. John) dined alone with Harley: "and at last," says Swift, in reporting the event, "they have consented to let me among them on that day." He goes next day, and already chides Lord Rivers for presuming to intrude into the sacred circle. "They call me nothing but Jonathan," he adds; "and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan, as they found me." These dinners were continued, though they became less select. Harley called Sat.u.r.day his "whipping-day;" and Swift was the heartiest wielder of the lash. From the same February, Swift began to dine regularly with St. John every Sunday; and we may note it as some indication of the causes of his later preference of Harley, that on one occasion he has to leave St. John early. The company, he says, were in constraint, because he would suffer no man to swear or talk indecently in his presence.

Swift had thus conquered the ministry at a blow. What services did he render in exchange? His extraordinary influence seems to have been due in a measure to sheer force of personal ascendency. No man could come into contact with Swift without feeling that magnetic influence. But he was also doing a more tangible service. In thus admitting Swift to their intimacy, Harley and St. John were in fact paying homage to the rising power of the pen. Political writers had hitherto been hirelings, and often little better than spies. No preceding, and, we may add, no succeeding writer ever achieved such a position by such means. The press has become more powerful as a whole: but no particular representative of the press has made such a leap into power. Swift came at the time when the influence of political writing was already great: and when the personal favour of a prominent minister could still work miracles. Harley made him a favourite of the old stamp, to reward his supremacy in the use of the new weapon.

Swift had begun in October by avenging himself upon G.o.dolphin"s coldness, in a copy of Hudibrastic verses about the virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician"s Rod--that is, the treasurer"s staff of office--which had a wonderful success. He fell savagely upon the hated Wharton not long after, in what he calls "a d.a.m.ned libellous pamphlet," of which 2000 copies were sold in two days. Libellous, indeed, is a faint epithet to describe a production which, if its statements be true, proves that Wharton deserved to be hunted from society. Charges of lying, treachery, atheism, Presbyterianism, debauchery, indecency, shameless indifference to his own reputation and his wife"s, the vilest corruption and tyranny in his government are piled upon his victim as thickly as they will stand. Swift does not expect to sting Wharton. "I neither love nor hate him," he says.

"If I see him after this is published, he will tell me "that he is d.a.m.nably mauled;" and then, with the easiest transition in the world, ask about the weather, or the time of day." Wharton might possibly think that abuse of this kind might almost defeat itself by its own virulence. But Swift had already begun writings of a more statesmanlike and effective kind.

A paper war was already raging when Swift came to London. The _Examiner_ had been started by St. John, with the help of Atterbury, Prior, and others; and, opposed for a short time by Addison, in the _Whig Examiner_.

Harley, after granting the first-fruits, had told Swift, that the great want of the ministry was "some good pen," to keep up the spirits of the party. The _Examiner_, however, was in need of a firmer and more regular manager; and Swift took it in hand, his first weekly article appearing November 2nd, 1710, his last on June 14th, 1711. His _Examiners_ achieved an immediate and unprecedented success. And yet to say the truth, a modern reader is apt to find them decidedly heavy. No one, indeed, can fail to perceive the masculine sense, the terseness and precision of the utterance. And yet many writings which produced less effect are far more readable now. The explanation is simple, and applies to most of Swift"s political writings. They are all rather acts than words. They are blows struck in a party-contest: and their merit is to be gauged by their effect. Swift cares nothing for eloquence, or logic, or invective--and little, it must be added, for veracity--so long as he hits his mark. To judge him by a merely literary standard, is to judge a fencer by the grace of his att.i.tudes. Some high literary merits are implied in efficiency, as real grace is necessary to efficient fencing: but in either case, a clumsy blow which reaches the heart is better than the most dexterous flourish in the air. Swift"s eye is always on the end, as a good marksman looks at nothing but the target.

What, then, is Swift"s aim in the _Examiner_? Mr. Kinglake has told us how a great journal throve by discovering what was the remark that was on every one"s lips, and making the remark its own. Swift had the more dignified task of really striking the keynote for his party. He was to put the ministerial theory into that form in which it might seem to be the inevitable utterance of strong common-sense. Harley"s supporters were to see in Swift"s phrases just what they would themselves have said--if they had been able. The shrewd, st.u.r.dy, narrow prejudices of the average Englishman were to be pressed into the service of the ministry, by showing how admirably they could be clothed in the ministerial formulas.

The real question, again, as Swift saw, was the question of peace. Whig and Tory, as he said afterwards,[23] were really obsolete words. The true point at issue was peace or war. The purpose, therefore, was to take up his ground so that peace might be represented as the natural policy of the church or Tory party; and war as the natural fruit of the selfish Whigs.

It was necessary, at the same time, to show that this was not the utterance of high-flying Toryism or downright Jacobitism, but the plain dictate of a cool and impartial judgment. He was not to prove but to take for granted that the war had become intolerably burdensome; and to express the growing wish for peace in terms likely to conciliate the greatest number of supporters. He was to lay down the platform which could attract as many as possible, both of the zealous Tories and of the lukewarm Whigs.

Measured by their fitness for this end, the _Examiners_ are admirable.

Their very fitness for the end implies the absence of some qualities which would have been more attractive to posterity. Stirring appeals to patriotic sentiment may suit a Chatham rousing a nation to action; but Swift"s aim is to check the extravagance in the name of selfish prosaic prudence. The philosophic reflections of Burke, had Swift been capable of such reflection, would have flown above the heads of his hearers. Even the polished and elaborate invective of Junius would have been out of place.

No man, indeed, was a greater master of invective than Swift. He shows it in the _Examiners_ by onslaughts upon the detested Wharton. He shows, too, that he is not restrained by any scruples when it comes in his way to attack his old patrons, and he adopts the current imputations upon their private character. He could roundly accuse Cowper of bigamy, and Somers--the Somers whom he had elaborately praised some years before in the dedication to the _Tale of a Tub_--of the most abominable perversion of justice. But these are taunts thrown out by the way. The substance of the articles is not invective, but profession of political faith. One great name, indeed, is of necessity a.s.sailed. Marlborough"s fame was a tower of strength for the Whigs. His d.u.c.h.ess and his colleagues had fallen; but whilst war was still raging, it seemed impossible to dismiss the greatest living commander. Yet whilst Marlborough was still in power, his influence might be used to bring back his party. Swift"s treatment of this great adversary is significant. He constantly took credit for having suppressed many attacks[24] upon Marlborough. He was convinced that it would be dangerous for the country to dismiss a general whose very name carried victory.[25] He felt that it was dangerous for the party to make an unreserved attack upon the popular hero. Lord Rivers, he says, cursed the _Examiner_ to him for speaking civilly of Marlborough; and St. John, upon hearing of this, replied that if the counsels of such men as Rivers were taken, the ministry "would be blown up in twenty-four hours." Yet Marlborough was the war personified; and the way to victory lay over Marlborough"s body. Nor had Swift any regard for the man himself, who, he says,[26] is certainly a vile man, and has no sort of merit except the military--as "covetous as h.e.l.l, and as ambitious as the prince of it."[27] The whole case of the ministry implied the condemnation of Marlborough. Most modern historians would admit that continuance of the war could at this time be desired only by fanatics or interested persons.

A psychologist might amuse himself by inquiring what were the actual motives of its advocates; in what degrees personal ambition, a misguided patriotism, or some more sordid pa.s.sions were blended. But in the ordinary dialect of political warfare there is no room for such refinements. The theory of Swift and Swift"s patrons was simple. The war was the creation of the Whig "ring;" it was carried on for their own purposes by the stock-jobbers and "monied men," whose rise was a new political phenomenon, and who had introduced the diabolical contrivance of public debts. The landed interest and the church had been hoodwinked too long by the union of corrupt interests supported by Dutchmen, Scotchmen, dissenters, freethinkers, and other manifestations of the evil principle. Marlborough was the head and patron of the whole. And what was Marlborough"s motive?

The answer was simple. It was that which has been a.s.signed, with even more emphasis, by Macaulay--Avarice. The twenty-seventh _Examiner_ (Feb. 8th, 1711) probably contains the compliments to which Rivers objected. Swift, in fact, admits that Marlborough had all the great qualities generally attributed to him; but all are spoilt by this fatal blemish. How far the accusation was true matters little. It is put at least with force and dignity; and it expressed in the pithiest shape Swift"s genuine conviction, that the war now meant corrupt self-interest. Invective, as Swift knew well enough in his cooler moments, is a dangerous weapon, apt to recoil on the a.s.sailant unless it carries conviction. The attack on Marlborough does not betray personal animosity; but the deliberate and the highly plausible judgment of a man determined to call things by their right names, and not to be blinded by military glory.

This, indeed, is one of the points upon which Swift"s Toryism was unlike that of some later periods. He always disliked and despised soldiers and their trade. "It will no doubt be a mighty comfort to our grandchildren,"

he says in another pamphlet,[28] "when they see a few rags hung up in Westminster Hall which cost a hundred millions, whereof they are paying the arrears, to boast as beggars do that their grandfathers were rich and great." And in other respects he has some right to claim the adhesion of thorough Whigs. His personal attacks, indeed, upon the party have a questionable sound. In his zeal he constantly forgets that the corrupt ring which he denounces were the very men from whom he expected preferment. "I well remember," he says[29] elsewhere, "the clamours often raised during the late reign of that party (the Whigs) against the leaders by those who thought their merits were not rewarded; and they had, no doubt, reason on their side, because it is, no doubt, a misfortune to forfeit honour and conscience for nothing"--rather an awkward remark from a man who was calling Somers "a false, deceitful rascal" for not giving him a bishopric! His eager desire to make the "ungrateful dogs" repent their ill-usage of him prompts attacks which injure his own character with that of his former a.s.sociates. But he has some ground for saying that Whigs have changed their principles, in the sense that their dislike of prerogative and of standing armies had curiously declined when the Crown and the army came to be on their side. Their enjoyment of power had made them soften some of the prejudices learnt in days of depression. Swift"s dislike of what we now call "militarism" really went deeper than any party sentiment; and in that sense, as we shall hereafter see, it had really most affinity with a radicalism which would have shocked Whigs and Tories alike. But in this particular case it fell in with the Tory sentiment. The masculine vigour of the _Examiners_ served the ministry, who were scarcely less in danger from the excessive zeal of their more bigoted followers than from the resistance of the Whig minority. The pig-headed country squires had formed an October Club, to muddle themselves with beer and politics, and hoped--good honest souls--to drive ministers into a genuine attack on the corrupt practices of their predecessors. All Harley"s skill in intriguing and wire-pulling would be needed. The ministry, said Swift (on March 4th), "stood like an isthmus" between Whigs and violent Tories.

He trembled for the result. They are able seamen, but the tempest "is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them." Somers had been twice in the queen"s closet. The d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, who had succeeded the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, might be trying to play Mrs.

Masham"s game. Harley, "though the most fearless man alive," seemed to be nervous, and was far from well. "Pray G.o.d preserve his health," says Swift; "everything depends upon it." Four days later, Swift is in an agony. "My heart," he exclaims, "is almost broken." Harley had been stabbed by Guiscard (March 8th, 1711) at the council-board. Swift"s letters and journals show an agitation, in which personal affection seems to be even stronger than political anxiety. "Pray pardon my distraction,"

he says to Stella, in broken sentences. "I now think of all his kindness to me. The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French popish villain. Good night, and G.o.d bless you both, and pity me; I want it." He wrote to King under the same excitement. Harley, he says, "has always treated me with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused me any favour I asked for a friend; therefore I hope your Grace will excuse the character of this letter." He apologizes again in a postscript for his confusion; it must be imputed to the "violent pain of mind I am in--greater than ever I felt in my life." The danger was not over for three weeks. The chief effect seems to have been that Harley became popular as the intended victim of an hypothetical Popish conspiracy; he introduced an applauded financial scheme in Parliament after his recovery, and was soon afterwards made Earl of Oxford by way of consolation. "This man," exclaimed Swift, "has grown by persecutions, turnings out, and stabbings. What waiting and crowding and bowing there will be at his levee!"

Swift had meanwhile (April 26) retired to Chelsea "for the air," and to have the advantage of a compulsory walk into town (two miles, or 5748 steps each way, he calculates). He was liable, indeed, to disappointment on a rainy day, when "all the three stage-coaches" were taken up by the "cunning natives of Chelsea;" but he got a lift to town in a gentleman"s coach for a shilling. He bathed in the river on the hot nights, with his Irish servant, Patrick, standing on the bank to warn off pa.s.sing boats.

The said Patrick, who is always getting drunk, whom Swift cannot find it in his heart to dismiss in England, who atones for his general carelessness and lying by buying a linnet for Dingley, making it wilder than ever in his attempts to tame it, is a characteristic figure in the journal. In June Swift gets ten days" holiday at Wycombe, and in the summer he goes down pretty often with the ministers to Windsor. He came to town in two hours and forty minutes on one occasion: "twenty miles are nothing here." The journeys are described in one of the happiest of his occasional poems--

"Tis (let me see) three years or more (October next it will be four) Since Harley bid me first attend And chose me for an humble friend: Would take me in his coach to chat And question me of this or that: As "What"s o"clock?" and "How"s the wind?"

"Whose chariot"s that we left behind?"

Or gravely try to read the lines Writ underneath the country signs.

Or, "Have you nothing new to-day, From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?"

Such tattle often entertains My lord and me as far as Staines, As once a week we travel down To Windsor, and again to town, Where all that pa.s.ses _inter nos_ Might be proclaimed at Charing Cross.

And when, it is said, St. John was disgusted by the frivolous amus.e.m.e.nts of his companions; and his political discourses might be interrupted by Harley"s exclamation, "Swift, I am up; there"s a cat"--the first who saw a cat or an old woman, winning the game.

Swift and Harley were soon playing a more exciting game. Prior had been sent to France to renew peace negotiations, with elaborate mystery. Even Swift was kept in ignorance. On his return Prior was arrested by officious custom-house officers, and the fact of his journey became public. Swift took advantage of the general interest by a pamphlet intended to "bite the town." Its political purpose, according to Swift, was to "furnish fools with something to talk of;" to draw a false scent across the trail of the angry and suspicious Whigs. It seems difficult to believe that any such effect could be produced or antic.i.p.ated; but the pamphlet, which purports to be an account of Prior"s journey given by a French valet, desirous of pa.s.sing himself off as a secretary, is an amusing example of Swift"s power of grave simulation of realities. The peace negotiations brought on a decisive political struggle. Parliament was to meet in September. The Whigs resolved to make a desperate effort.

They had lost the House of Commons, but were still strong in the Peers.

The Lords were not affected by the rapid oscillations of public opinion.

They were free from some of the narrower prejudices of country squires, and true to a revolution which gave the chief power for more than a century to the aristocracy: while the recent creations had enn.o.bled the great Whig leaders, and filled the bench with low churchmen. Marlborough and G.o.dolphin had come over to the Whig junto, and an additional alliance was now made. Nottingham had been pa.s.sed over by Harley, as it seems, for his extreme Tory principles. In his wrath, he made an agreement with the other extreme. By one of the most disgraceful bargains of party history, Nottingham was to join the Whigs in attacking the peace, whilst the Whigs were to buy his support by accepting the Occasional Conformity Bill--the favourite high church measure. A majority in the House of Lords could not indeed determine the victory. The Government of England, says Swift in 1715,[30] "cannot move a step while the House of Commons continues to dislike proceedings or persons employed." But the plot went further. The House of Lords might bring about a deadlock, as it had done before. The queen, having thrown off the rule of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, had sought safety in the rule of two mistresses, Mrs. Masham and the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset. The d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset was in the Whig interest; and her influence with the queen caused the gravest anxiety to Swift and the ministry. She might induce Anne to call back the Whigs, and in a new House of Commons, elected under a Whig ministry wielding the crown influence and appealing to the dread of a discreditable peace, the majority might be reversed. Meanwhile Prince Eugene was expected to pay a visit to England, bringing fresh proposals for war, and stimulating by his presence the enthusiasm of the Whigs.

Towards the end of September the Whigs began to pour in a heavy fire of pamphlets, and Swift rather meanly begs the help of St. John and the law.

But he is confident of victory. Peace is certain; and a peace "very much to the honour and advantage of England." The Whigs are furious; "but we"ll wherret them, I warrant, boys." Yet he has misgivings. The news comes of the failure of the Tory expedition against Quebec, which was to have antic.i.p.ated the policy and the triumphs of Chatham. Harley only laughs as usual; but St. John is cruelly vexed, and begins to suspect his colleagues of suspecting him. Swift listens to both, and tries to smooth matters; but he is growing serious. "I am half weary of them all," he exclaims, and begins to talk of retiring to Ireland. Harley has a slight illness, and Swift is at once in a fright. "We are all undone without him," he says, "so pray for him, sirrahs!" Meanwhile, as the parliamentary struggle comes nearer, Swift launches the pamphlet which has been his summer"s work. The _Conduct of the Allies_ is intended to prove what he had taken for granted in the _Examiners_. It is to show, that is, that the war has ceased to be demanded by national interests. We ought always to have been auxiliaries; we chose to become princ.i.p.als; and have yet so conducted the war that all the advantages have gone to the Dutch. The explanation of course is the selfishness or corruption of the great Whig junto. The pamphlet, forcible and terse in the highest degree, had a success due in part to other circ.u.mstances. It was as much a State paper as a pamphlet; a manifesto obviously inspired by the ministry and containing the facts and papers which were to serve in the coming debates. It was published on Nov. 27th; on December 1st the second edition was sold in five hours; and by the end of January 11,000 copies had been sold. The parliamentary struggle began on December 7th; and the amendment to the address, declaring that no peace could be safe which left Spain to the Bourbons, was moved by Nottingham, and carried by a small majority. Swift had foreseen this danger; he had begged ministers to work up the majority; and the defeat was due to Harley"s carelessness. It was Swift"s temper to antic.i.p.ate though not to yield to the worst. He could see nothing but ruin. Every rumour increased his fears, The queen had taken the hand of the Duke of Somerset on leaving the House of Lords, and refused Shrewsbury"s. She must be going over.

Swift, in his despair, asked St. John to find him some foreign post, where he might be out of harm"s way if the Whigs should triumph. St. John laughed and affected courage, but Swift refused to be comforted. Harley told him that "all would be well;" but Harley for the moment had lost his confidence. A week after the vote he looks upon the ministry as certainly ruined; and "G.o.d knows," he adds, "what may be the consequences." By degrees a little hope began to appear; though the ministry, as Swift still held, could expect nothing till the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset was turned out. By way of accelerating this event, he hit upon a plan, which he had reason to repent, and which nothing but his excitement could explain. He composed and printed one of his favourite squibs, the _Windsor Prophecy_, and though Mrs. Masham persuaded him not to publish it, distributed too many copies for secrecy to be possible. In this production, now dull enough, he calls the d.u.c.h.ess "carrots," as a delicate hint at her red hair, and says that she murdered her second husband.[31] These statements, even if true, were not conciliatory; and it was folly to irritate without injuring.

Meanwhile reports of ministerial plans gave him a little courage; and in a day or two the secret was out. He was on his way to the post on Sat.u.r.day, December 28th, when the great news came. The ministry had resolved on something like a _coup d"etat_, to be long mentioned with horror by all orthodox Whigs and Tories. "I have broke open my letter," scribbled Swift in a coffee-house, "and tore it into the bargain, to let you know that we are all safe. The queen has made no less than twelve new peers ... and has turned out the Duke of Somerset. She is awaked at last, and so is Lord Treasurer. I want nothing now but to see the d.u.c.h.ess out. But we shall do without her. We are all extremely happy. Give me joy, sirrahs!" The Duke of Somerset was not out; but a greater event happened within three days; the Duke of Marlborough was removed from all his employments. The Tory victory was for the time complete.

Here, too, was the culminating point of Swift"s career. Fifteen months of energetic effort had been crowned with success. He was the intimate of the greatest men in the country; and the most powerful exponent of their policy. No man in England, outside the ministry, enjoyed a wider reputation. The ball was at his feet; and no position open to a clergyman beyond his hopes. Yet from this period begins a decline. He continued to write, publishing numerous squibs, of which many have been lost, and occasionally firing a gun of heavier metal. But nothing came from him having the authoritative and masterly tone of the _Conduct of the Allies_.

His health broke down. At the beginning of April, 1712, he was attacked by a distressing complaint; and his old enemy, giddiness, gave him frequent alarms. The daily journal ceased, and was not fairly resumed till December, though its place is partly supplied by occasional letters. The political contest had changed its character. The centre of interest was transferred to Utrecht, where negotiations began in January, to be protracted over fifteen months: the ministry had to satisfy the demand for peace, without shocking the national self-esteem. Meanwhile jealousies were rapidly developing themselves, which Swift watched with ever-growing anxiety.

Swift"s personal influence remained or increased. He drew closer to Oxford, but was still friendly with St. John; and to the public his position seemed more imposing than ever. Swift was not the man to bear his honours meekly. In the early period of his acquaintance with St. John (February 12, 1711), he sends the Prime Minister into the House of Commons, to tell the Secretary of State that "I would not dine with him if he dined late." He is still a novice at the Sat.u.r.day dinners when the Duke of Shrewsbury appears: Swift whispers that he does not like to see a stranger among them; and St. John has to explain that the Duke has written for leave. St. John then tells Swift that the Duke of Buckingham desires his acquaintance. The Duke, replied Swift, has not made sufficient advances: and he always expects greater advances from men in proportion to their rank. Dukes and great men yielded, if only to humour the pride of this audacious parson: and Swift soon came to be pestered by innumerable applicants, attracted by his ostentation of influence. Even ministers applied through him. "There is not one of them," he says, in January, 1713, "but what will employ me as gravely to speak for them to Lord Treasurer, as if I were their brother or his." He is proud of the burden of influence with the great, though he affects to complain. The most vivid picture of Swift in all his glory, is in a familiar pa.s.sage from Bishop Kennett"s diary:--

"Swift," says Kennett, in 1713, "came into the coffee-house, and had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the princ.i.p.al man of talk and business, and acted as minister of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother the Duke of Ormond to get a chaplain"s place established in the garrison of Hull, for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighbourhood, who had lately been in jail, and published sermons to pay fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my Lord Treasurer that according to his pet.i.tion he should obtain a salary of 200_l._ per annum, as minister of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the queen, and told him aloud he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer.

He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book and wrote down several things as _memoranda_, to do for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and telling him the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said, "it was too fast." "How can I help it," says the Doctor, "if the courtiers give me a watch that won"t go right?" Then he instructed a young n.o.bleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which, he said, he must have them all subscribe. "For," says he, "the author _shall not_ begin to print till _I have_ a thousand guineas for him."

Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him; both went off just before prayers."

There is undoubtedly something offensive in this bl.u.s.tering self-a.s.sertion. "No man," says Johnson, with his usual force, "can pay a more servile tribute to the great than by suffering his liberty in their presence to aggrandize him in his own esteem." Delicacy was not Swift"s strong point; his compliments are as clumsy as his invectives are forcible; and he shows a certain taint of vulgarity in his intercourse with social dignitaries. He is perhaps avenging himself for the humiliations received at Moor Park. He has a Napoleonic absence of magnanimity. He likes to relish his triumph; to accept the pettiest as well as the greatest rewards; to flaunt his splendours in the eyes of the servile as well as to enjoy the consciousness of real power. But it would be a great mistake to infer that this ostentatiousness of authority concealed real servility. Swift preferred to take the bull by the horns.

He forced himself upon ministers by self-a.s.sertion; and he held them in awe of him as the lion-tamer keeps down the latent ferocity of the wild beast. He never takes his eye off his subjects, nor lowers his imperious demeanour. He retained his influence, as Johnson observes, long after his services had ceased to be useful. And all this demonstrative patronage meant real and energetic work. We may note, for example, and it incidentally confirms Kennett"s accuracy, that he was really serviceable to Davenant,[32] and that Fiddes got the chaplaincy at Hull. No man ever threw himself with more energy into the service of his friends. He declared afterwards that in the days of his credit he had done fifty times more for fifty people, from whom he had received no obligations, than Temple had done for him.[33] The journal abounds in proofs that this was not overstated. There is "Mr. Harrison," for example, who has written "some mighty pretty things." Swift takes him up; rescues him from the fine friends who are carelessly tempting him to extravagance; tries to start him in a continuation of the _Tatler_; exults in getting him a secretaryship abroad, which he declares to be "the prettiest post in Europe for a young gentleman;" and is most unaffectedly and deeply grieved when the poor lad dies of a fever. He is carrying 100_l._ to his young friend, when he hears of his death. "I told Parnell I was afraid to knock at the door, my mind misgave me," he says. On his way to bring help to Harrison, he goes to see a "poor poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret, very sick," and consoles him with twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke. A few days before he has managed to introduce Parnell to Harley, or rather to contrive it so that "the ministry desire to be acquainted with Parnell, and not Parnell with the ministry." His old schoolfellow Congreve was in alarm about his appointments. Swift spoke at once to Harley, and went off immediately to report his success to Congreve: "so," he says, "I have made a worthy man easy, and that is a good day"s work."[34] One of the latest letters in his journal refers to his attempt to serve his other schoolfellow, Berkeley. "I will favour him as much as I can," he says; "this I think I am bound to in honour and conscience, to use all my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world." He was always helping less conspicuous men; and he prided himself, with justice, that he had been as helpful to Whigs as to Tories. The ministry complained that he never came to them "without a Whig in his sleeve." Besides his friend Congreve, he recommended Rowe for preferment, and did his best to protect Steele and Addison. No man of letters ever laboured more heartily to promote the interests of his fellow-craftsmen, as few have ever had similar opportunities.

Swift, it is plain, desired to use his influence magnificently. He hoped to make his reign memorable by splendid patronage of literature. The great organ of munificence was the famous Brothers" Club, of which he was the animating spirit. It was founded in June, 1711, during Swift"s absence at Wycombe; it was intended to "advance conversation and friendship," and obtain patronage for deserving persons. It was to include none but wits and men able to help wits, and, "if we go on as we begun," says Swift, "no other club in this town will be worth talking of." In March, 1712, it consisted, as Swift tells us, of nine lords and ten commoners.[35] It excluded Harley and the Lord Keeper (Harcourt) apparently as they were to be the distributors of the patronage; but it included St. John and several leading ministers, Harley"s son and son-in-law, and Harcourt"s son; whilst literature was represented by Swift, Arbuthnot, Prior, and Friend, all of whom were more or less actively employed by the ministry. The club was therefore composed of the ministry and their dependents, though it had not avowedly a political colouring. It dined on Thursday during the Parliamentary session, when the political squibs of the day were often laid on the table, including Swift"s famous _Windsor Prophecy_, and subscriptions were sometimes collected for such men as Diaper and Harrison. It flourished, however, for little more than the first season.

In the winter of 1712-13 it began to suffer from the common disease of such inst.i.tutions. Swift began to complain bitterly of the extravagance of the charges. He gets the club to leave a tavern in which the bill[36] "for four dishes and four, first and second course, without wine and drink,"

had been 21_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ The number of guests, it seems, was fourteen.

Next winter the charges are divided. "It cost me nineteen shillings to-day for my club dinner," notes Swift, Dec. 18, 1712. "I don"t like it." Swift had a high value for every one of the nineteen shillings. The meetings became irregular: Harley was ready to give promises, but no patronage: and Swift"s attendance falls off. Indeed, it may be noted that he found dinners and suppers full of danger to his health. He constantly complains of their after-effects; and partly perhaps for that reason he early ceases to frequent coffee-houses. Perhaps too his contempt for coffee-house society, and the increasing dignity which made it desirable to keep possible applicants at a distance, had much to do with this. The Brothers"

Club, however, was long remembered by its members, and in later years they often address each other by the old fraternal t.i.tle.

One design which was to have signalized Swift"s period of power, suggested the only paper which he had ever published with his name. It was a "proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English language," published in May, 1712, in the form of a letter to Harley. The letter itself, written offhand in six hours (Feb. 21, 1712), is not of much value; but Swift recurs to the subject frequently enough to show that he really hoped to be the founder of an English Academy. Had Swift been his own minister instead of the driver of a minister, the project might have been started. The rapid development of the political struggle sent Swift"s academy to the limbo provided for such things; and few English authors will regret the failure of a scheme unsuited to our natural idiosyncrasy, and calculated, as I fancy, to end in nothing but an organization of pedantry.

One remark meanwhile occurs which certainly struck Swift himself. He says (March 17, 1712) that Sacheverel, the Tory martyr, has come to him for patronage, and observes that when he left Ireland neither of them could have antic.i.p.ated such a relationship. "This," he adds, "is the seventh I have now provided for since I came, and can do nothing for myself." Hints at a desire for preferment do not appear for some time; but as he is constantly speaking of an early return to Ireland, and is as regularly held back by the entreaties of the ministry, there must have been at least an implied promise. A hint had been given that he might be made chaplain to Harley, when the minister became Earl of Oxford. "I will be no man"s chaplain alive," he says. He remarks about the same time (May 23, 1711) that it "would look extremely little" if he returned without some distinction; but he will not beg for preferment. The ministry, he says in the following August, only want him for one bit of business (the _Conduct of the Allies_ presumably). When that is done, he will take his leave of them. "I never got a penny from them nor expect it." The only post for which he made a direct application was that of historiographer. He had made considerable preparations for his so-called _History of the Last Four Years of Queen Anne_, which appeared posthumously; and which may be described as one of his political pamphlets without the vigour[37]--a dull statement of facts put together by a partisan affecting the historical character. This application, however, was not made till April, 1714, when Swift was possessed of all the preferment that he was destined to receive.

He considered in his haughty way that he should be entreated rather than entreat; and ministers were perhaps slow to give him anything which could take him away from them. A secret influence was at work against him. The _Tale of a Tub_ was brought up against him; and imputations upon his orthodoxy were common. Nottingham even revenged himself by describing Swift in the House of Lords as a divine "who is hardly suspected of being a Christian." Such insinuations were also turned to account by the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, who retained her influence over Anne in spite of Swift"s attacks. His journal in the winter of 1712-13 shows growing discontent. In December, 1712, he resolves to write no more till something is done for him. He will get under shelter before he makes more enemies. He declares that he is "soliciting nothing" (February 4, 1713), but he is growing impatient. Harley is kinder than ever. "Mighty kind!" exclaims Swift, "with a ----; less of civility and more of interest;" or as he puts it in one of his favourite "proverbs" soon afterwards--"my grandmother used to say,--