agree word for word, and, what at first amazed me, order for order, that no two tallies nor two indentures can agree better.

I affirm that these so placed will prove each other to a demonstration; for I alter not a letter of my own head without the authority of these old witnesses. And the beauty of the composition (barbarous, God knows, at present), is so improved, as makes it more worthy of a revelation, and yet not one text of consequence injured or weakened.

My Lord, if a casual fire should take either his Majesty's library, or the King's of France, all the world could not do this. As I have therefore great impulse, and I hope not aɛɛì to set about this work immediately, and leave it as a ReμV to posterity, against Atheists and Infidels, I thought it my duty and my honour to first acquaint your Grace with it; and know if the extrinsic expense necessary to do such a work compleatly (for my labour I reckon nothing) may obtain any encouragement, either from the Crown or Public.

I am, with all duty and obedience

Your Grace's most humble servant

RI. BENTLEY.

CVI.

William III. had promised Sir William Temple that Dr. Swift should have the first vacancy which might happen among the prebends of Westminster or Canterbury, and reference is made to this promise in the following letter soliciting preferment at the hands of Lord Halifax.

This Minister died a year before a vacancy occurred, and Swift, who really never enjoyed the full measure of Ministerial confidence, was disappointed. Most of the future Dean of St. Patrick's English admirers preferred to acknowledge his claims at a distance; for the partial welcome he received in England was the natural result of his patronising airs and overbearing manners.

Dr. Swift to the Earl of Halifax.

Leicester: January 13, 1709. My Lord,-Before I leave this place (where ill health has detained me longer than I intended) I thought it my duty to return your Lordship my acknowledgments for all your favors to me while I was in town; and, at the same time, to beg some share in your Lordship's memory, and the continuance of your

protection. You were pleased to promise me your good offices upon occasion; which I humbly challenge in two particulars; one is that you will sometimes put my Lord President in mind of me; the other is, that your Lordship will duly once every year wish me removed to England. In the mean time, I must take leave to reproach your Lordship for a most inhuman piece of cruelty; for I can call your extreme good usage of me no better, since it has taught me to hate the place where I am banished, and raised my thoughts to an imagination, that I might live to be some way usefull or entertaining, if I were permitted to live in Town, or (which is the highest punishment on Papists) any where within ten miles round it. You remember very well, my Lord, how another person of quality in Horace's time, used to serve a sort of fellows who had disobliged him; how he sent them fine cloaths, and money, which raised their thoughts and their hopes, till those were worn out and spent, and then they were ten times more miserable than before. Hac ego si compellar imagine, cuncta resigno. I could cite several other passages from the same author, to my purpose; and whatever is applyed to Mæcenas I will not thank your Lordship for accepting, because it is what you have been condemned to these twenty years by every one of us, qui se mêlent d'avoir de l'esprit. I have been studying how to be revenged of your Lordship, and have found out the way. They have in Ireland the same idea with us of your Lordship's generosity, magnificence, witt, judgment, and knowledge in the enjoyment of life. But I shall quickly undeceive them, by letting them plainly know that you have neither Interest nor Fortune which you can call your own; both having been long made over to the Corporation of deserving Men in Want, who have appointed you their advocate and steward, which the world is pleas'd to call Patron and Protector. I shall inform them, that my self and about a dozen others kept the best table in England, to which because we admitted your Lordship in common with us, made you our manager, and sometimes allowed you to bring a friend, therefore ignorant people would needs take You to be the Owner. And lastly, that you are the most injudicious person alive; because, though you had fifty times more witt than all of us together, you never discover the least value for it, but are perpetually countenancing and encouraging that of others. I could add a great deal more, but shall reserve the rest of my threatnings

till further provocation. In the mean time I demand of your Lordship the justice of believing me to be with the greatest respect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient and

most obliged humble servant

JON. SWIFT.

Pray, my Lord, desire Dr South to dy about the fall of the Leaf, for he has a Prebend of Westminister, which will make me your neighbor, and a sine-cure in the Country, both in the Queen's gift, which my friends have often told me would fitt me extremely; and forgive me one word, which I know not what extorts from me; that if my Lord President would in such a juncture think me worth laying any weight of his Credit, you cannot but think me persuaded that it would be a very easy matter to compass: and I have some sort of pretence, since the late King promised me a Prebend of Westminster, when I petitioned him in pursuance of a recommendation I had from Sir William Temple.

For the Right Honourable

the Lord Halifax, at his House

in the New Palace-yard in Westminster.
London.

CVII.

This account of the French Abbé Guiscard's attempt to assassinate Harley was written within an hour or two of the event it describes.

Dean Swift to Archbishop King.

London: March 8, 1711.

My Lord, I write to your grace under the greatest disturbance of mind for the public and myself. A gentleman came in where I dined this afternoon, and told us Mr. Harley was stabbed, and some confused particulars. I immediately ran to secretary St. John's hard by, but nobody was at home; I met Mrs. St. John in her chair, who could not satisfy me, but was in pain about the secretary, who, as she had heard, had killed the murderer. I went straight to Mr. Harley's where abundance of people were to inquire. I got young Mr. Harley to me: he said his father was asleep, and

they hoped in no danger, and then told me the fact, as I shall relate it to your grace. This day the Marquis de Guis-card was taken up for high treason, by a warrant of Mr. St. John, and examined before a Committee of Council in Mr. St. John's office; where was present the dukes of Ormond, Buckingham, Shrewsbury, earl Powlett, Mr. Harley, Mr. St. John, and others. During examination, Mr. Harley observed Guis-card, who stood behind him, but on one side, swearing, and looking disrespectfully. He told him he ought to behave himself better while he was examined for such a crime. Guis-card immediately drew a penknife out of his pocket, which he had picked out of some of the offices, and, reaching round, stabbed him just under the breast a little to the right side; but it pleased God that the point stopped at one of the ribs, and broke short half an inch. Immediately Mr. St. John rose, drew his sword, and ran it into Guis-card's breast. Five or six more of the Council drew and Stabbed Guis-card in several places : but the earl Powlett called out, for God's sake, to spare Guiscard's life, that he might be made an example; and Mr. St. John's sword was taken from him and broke; and the footman without ran in, and bound Guis-card, who begged he might be killed immediately; and, they say called out three or four times, 'My lord Ormond! My lord Ormond !' They say Guis-card resisted them a while, until the footman came in. Immediately Bucier, the surgeon, was sent for, who dressed Mr. Harley; and he was sent home. The wound bled fresh, and they do not apprehend him in danger: he said, when he came home, he thought himself in none; and, when I was there he was asleep, and they did not find him at all feverish. He has been ill this week, and told me last Saturday he found himself much out of order, and has been abroad but twice since; so that the only danger is, lest his being out of order should, with the wound put him in a fever; and I shall be in a mighty pain till to-morrow morning. I went back to poor Mrs. St. John, who told me her husband was with my Lord-keeper [sir Simon Harcourt] at Mr. Attorney's, [sir John Trevor] and she said something to me very remarkable: 'That going to-day to pay her duty to the queen, when all the men and ladies were dressed to make their appearance, this being the day of the queen's accession, the lady of the bedchamber in waiting told her the queen had not been at church, and saw no company; yet, when she inquired her

health, they said she was very well, only had a little cold.' We conceive the queen's reasons for not going out might be something about this seizing of Guis-card for high treason, and that perhaps there was some plot, or something extraordinary. Your grace must have heard of this Guis-card: he fled from France for villanies there, and was thought on to head an invasion of that kingdom, but was not liked. I know him well, and think him a fellow of little consequence, although of some cunning and much villany. We passed by one another this day in the Mall, at two o'clock, an hour before he was taken up; and I wondered he did not speak to me.

I write all this to your grace, because I believe you would desire to know a true account of so important an accident; and besides, I know you will have a thousand false ones; and I believe every material circumstance here is true, having it from young Mr. Harley. I met sir Thomas Mansel (it was then after six this evening,) and he and Mr. Prior told me they had just seen Guiscard carried by in a chair, with a strong guard, to Newgate or the Press-yard. Time perhaps will show who was at the bottom of all this; but nothing could happen so unluckily to England, at this juncture, as Mr. Harley's death; when he has all the schemes for the greatest part of the supplies in his head, and the parliament cannot stir a step without him. Neither can I altogether forget myself, who, in him, should lose a person I have more obligations to than any other in this kingdom; who 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 disorder of this letter. I was intending, this night, to write one of another sort. I must needs say, one great reason for writing these particulars to your grace was, that you might be able to give a true account of the fact, which will be some sort of service to Mr Harley. I am with the greatest respect, my lord, your grace's most dutiful, and most humble servant,

JONATHAN SWIFT.

I have read over what I writ, and find it confused and incorrect, which your grace must impute to the violent pain of mind I am in, greater than ever I felt in my life. It must have been the utmost height of desperate guilt which could have spirited that