It is certain, much freer fatirifts than I have enjoyed the encouragement and protection of the prin÷ ces under whom they lived, Auguftus and Maecenas made Horace their companion, though he had been in arms on the fide of Brutus; and, allow me to remark, it was out of the suffering party too, that they favoured and distinguished Virgil. You will not fufpect me of comparing myfelf with Virgil and Horace, nor even with another court-favourite, Boileau. I have always been too modeft to imagine my pane gyrics were incense worthy of a court; and that, I hope, will be thought the true reason why I have never offered any. I would only have observed, that it was under the greatest princes and beft ministers, that moral satirifts were moft encouraged; and that then poets exercised the fame jurisdiction over the follies, as hiftorians did over the vices of men. may also be worth confidering, whether Augustus himself makes the greater figure, in the writings of the former, or of the latter? and whether Nero and Domitian do not appear as ridiculous for their false taste and affectation, in Perfius and Juvenal, as odious for their bad government in Tacitus and Suetonius? In the first of these reigns it was, that Horace was protected and careffed; and in the latter that Lucan was put to death, and Juvenal banished.

It

I would not have faid fo much, but to fhew you my whole heart on this fubject; and to convince you, I am deliberately bent to perform that request which you make your last to me, and to perform it with temper, justice, and resolution. As your approbation (being the teftimony of a found head and an honeft heart) does greatly confirm me herein, I wish you may live to fee the effect it may hereafter have

upon

upon me, 'in fome thing more deferving of that approbation. But if it be the will of God, (which, I know, will also be yours) that we must separate; I hope it will be better for you than it can be for me, You are fitter to live, or to die, than any man I know. Adieu, my dear friend! and inay God preserve your life easy, or make your death happy.

Swift.

Außer seinem Briefwechsel mit Pope, liefert auch die Sammlung seiner Werke eine Menge Briefe von ihm, die zum Cheil zwar auch den von Dr. Warton bemerkten Fehler der Anmaßlichkeit haben, aber doch nicht nur mit Leichtigkeit und Laune, sondern auch mit größerer Offenheit des Charakters, als die Popischen, geschrieben find. Einer der lesenswürdigkten ist folgender, eine Apologie für Swift's Betragen und Schriften nach dem Tode der Königin Anna, und zugleich Darlegung seis ner politischen Grundsäge.

TO MR. POPE.

Dublin, Jan. 10. 1721.

A thousand things have vexed me of late years, upon which I am determined to lay open my mind to you. I rather chufe to appeal to you than to my Lord Chief Justice Whitshed, under the fituation I ain in. For I take this caufe properly to lie before you: you are a much fitter judge of what concerns the credit of a writer, the injuries that are done him, and the reparations he ought to receive. Besides, I doubt whether the arguments I could suggest to prove iny own innocence, would be of much weight from the gentlemen of the long robe to those in furs, upon whose decifion about the difference of ftyle or fentiments, I fhould be very unwilling to leave the merits of my cause.

Give me leave then to put you in mind, (although you cannot easily forget it), that about ten weeks before the Queen's death, I left the town, upon occafion

of

of that incurable breach among the great men at court, and went down to Berkshire, where you may remenber that you gave me the favour of a vifit. While I was in that retirement, I writ a discourse which I thought might be useful in such a juncture of affairs, and fent it up to London; but, upon some difference in opinion between me and a certain great minister now abroad, the publishing of it was deferred fo long that the Queen died, and I recalled my copy, which hath been ever since in safe hands. In a few weeks after the lofs of that excellent princess, I came to my ftation here; where I have continued ever since in the greatest privacy, and utter ignorance of those events which are most commonly talked of in the world. I neither know the names nor number of the royal family which now reigns, further than the prayerbook informs me. I cannot tell who is chancellor, who are secretaries, nor with what nations we are in peace, or war. And this manner of life was not taken up out of any sort of affectation, but merely to avoid giving offence, and for fear of provoking party-zeal.

I had indeed written fome memorials of the four last years of the Queen's reign, with fome other informations, which I received, as necessary materials to qualify me for doing something in an employment than defigned me: but, as it was at the disposal of a person who had not the smallest share of steadiness or fincerity, I disdained to accept it.

These papers, at my few hours of health and leifure, I have been digesting into order by one sheet at› a time; for I dare not venture any further, lest thei humour of searching and feizing papers fhould revive; not that I am in pain of any danger to myself, (for

they

they contain nothing of present times or perfons, upon which I fhall r never lofe a thought while there is a cat or a spaniel in the house), but to preserve thei from being loft among messengers and clerks.

I have written, in this kingdom, a discourse to persuade the wretched people to wear their own manufactures instead of those from England. This treatise soon spread very faft, being agreeable to the fentiments of the whole nation, except of thofe gentlemen who had employinents, or were exfpectant. Upon which a person in great office here immediately took the alarm: he sent in hafte for the chief-justice, and informed him of a feditious, factious, and virulent pamphlet, lately published, with a design of fetting the two kingdoms at variance; directing at the fame time that the printer should be profecuted with the almoft rigour of law. The chief-juftice had fo quick an understanding, that he refolved, if poffible, to outdo his orders. The grand juries of the county andcity were practifed effectually with to represent the said pamphlet with all aggravating epithets, for which they had thanks, fend them from England', and their prefentinents publifhed for feveral weeks in all the news-" papers. The printer was seized, and forced to give great bail: after his trial the jury brought him in not guilty, although they had been culled with the utmost industry; the chief justice sent them back nine times," and kept them eleven hours, until, being perfectly! tired out, they were forced to leave the matter to the mercy of the judge, by what they call a special verdict. During the trial, the chief justice, among other fingularities, laid his hand on his breast, and protested folemnly that the autor's defign was to bring in the pretender; although there was not a fingle fyllable

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