form of it, from his father, and his politics from his tutor, Dr. Trimnell, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. A Republican in his notions, and so zealously so, while his father was living, that he refused often to be styled lord and chose to be called Charles Spencer, declaring that he hoped to see the time, when the name of a lord should be extinguished. Moderate in his parts, and no scholar either in reality or even in the opinion of the public, notwithstanding his vast library.

Lord Wharton, perfectly indifferent to all real religion, though exclusive of this, in all other respects, a firm Presbyterian. Of great address in the management of elections, and bringing over young men of quality to his schemes by engaging them in his parties of pleasure, but of so prostitute a character, that it was infamous even to be seen with him. By his administration of Ireland liable to an impeachment, at least for high crime and misdemeanours.

Lord Cowper, ignorant in all foreign affairs, as appeared in council, and brought into the high station of Chancellor, without any of the intermediate steps to it, by those who wanted a person in it, that would give no obstruction to any of their designs, though his character was blemished with such irregularities as rendered him by no means a fit keeper of her Majesty's conscience. A piece of a scholar, and a tolerable logical reasoner, but accustomed to disguise a cause by sophistry and false glosses.

Duke of Marlborough, of good understanding, though absolutely uncultivated by education or study; had a prodigious command of his passions upon all occasions, except after he was dismissed from being general his character for personal courage doubted by many, though it might justly be supposed consistent with the prudence of a general. Avaricious, and resolved to continue the war for the immense profits he made of it.

Duchess of Marlborough, a woman of unbounded avarice, infinite pride, and ungovernable rage; affecting the character of wit, though supporting it chiefly by the fashionable humour of ridiculing the doctrines of Christianity and religion in general.

Earl of Nottingham declared at first against the Government of K. William, though he afterwards took a post under him—a conduct to be excused only from his numerous family. Took great pains to run down Lord Godolphin and the Junta, but being disobliged by the refusal of the post of Lord President of the Council, became a zealous enemy of the new ministry. His countenance not at all hypocritical, nor unsuitable to his temper. Of very slender acquisitions in learning, and from his facility of speaking persuading himself that he was master of an extraordinary eloquence, and affecting to show it on all occasions.

Duke of Somerset, of immeasurable pride, with a very bad judgment, though at first an enemy to the old ministry, soon quarrelling with the new, because they could not be governed by him; and at last lost his favour with the Queen, which himself and his duchess had gained by the

respect which they showed her Majesty while she was Princess of Denmark.

Prince Eugene, a lover of war, a science in which alone he could make any figure; cruel to a degree, that he would at any time have sacrificed 20,000 men to any point which he had in view; and resolved, while he was in England, to have taken off the Earl of Oxford à la negligence, as he styled it, for which purpose he encouraged those parties who did so much mischief in the streets of London in the night.

Lord Oxford's passion, ambition, without pride, cruelty or avarice, and though negligent of his friends' interests on some occasions, yet still more so of his own. Too patient under scandalous imputations, though thoroughly innocent of them. Those thoughts occurred at first to him which long deliberation alone suggests to others.

Mr. Robert Walpole engaged to his party by his absolute indifference to any principles, and secured to them by the loss of his place; whose firmness of countenance, which set him above that infirmity which makes men bashful, and readiness in speaking, made him esteemed by them one of their leaders of the second form.

The history sets forth the reasons of the changes of the ministry, which were-I. Their bad policies in refusing the terms offered by the King of France at Gertruydenberg, and imposing such upon him as neither that monarch nor his kingdom would submit to, and which, being published by him, united all his subjects in a resolution to support him at all hazards, and with the sacrifice of their whole property, and particularly the clergy, who offered to melt down their consecrated plate for that purpose. II. Their principles with regard to government and religion, which were extremely disagreeable to her Majesty. III. And the superior way in which they dictated to her upon all occasions, and the shocking treatment which she received from the Duchess of Marlborough. IV. That among other instances of ill-conduct they were highly blameable in inviting over so vast a number of Palatines, an useless idle body of men, from whom we could expect no advantage: upon which occasion Dr. Swift examines in what sense a nation may be said to be richer for the number of its inhabitants.

That the Dutch were clandestinely treating with the French on their own separate account.

Reflections on Buys the Dutch Minister, and the whole Dutch nation. Reflections on the French nation, with an invective against the injustice of their Salic Law.

Abusive character of Count Bothmar, whose memorial he says in the first draught to have been unknown to his master, though in his correction of that pasage he seems to suppose it was known.

The history ends with the peace of Utrecht."

Now, in the first place, this abstract, which is in Dr. Birch's own hand

writing, is dated in June, 1742,-nearly three years before the death of Swift. It was clearly taken from a manuscript substantially identical with that from which the book was published in 1758. We might, indeed, guess that the MS. which Lucas followed had received some alterations and additions as compared with that which Birch's abstract sums up. But this apparent discrepancy actually helps to establish the genuineness of the book for Birch says his abstract was taken from the manuscript, meaning thereby, as we must reasonably infer, the manuscript written by Swift himself. A man accustomed as he was to literary accuracy must otherwise have said that he followed a copy. On the other hand the publisher of the book in 1758, says that he followed "the last manuscript copy, corrected and enlarged by the author's own hand."

If, then, we suppose the book to be a forgery, we must suppose also that so careful a collector as Dr. Birch accepted without question a forgery which he had every opportunity of detecting: we must suppose that the forger courted detection by allowing his work to get abroad while Swift was still alive:* and that he concocted a counterfeit work when the genuine MS. was certainly in existence and might at any time have appeared to confute him.

It would clearly require powerful arguments to meet these proofs that the work is Swift's own. But the evidence to the contrary really amounts to nothing at all. The first doubt was raised by Dr. Johnson, in his "Life of Swift" (written more than twenty years after Lucas's book was published). The History, he says, was "after Swift's death in the hands of Lord Orrery and Dr. King.† A book under that title was published with Swift's name by Dr. Lucas, of which I can only say, that it seemed by no means to correspond with the notions that I had formed of it, from a conversation which I once heard between the Earl of Orrery and old Mr. Lewis." The doubt, it is only fair to say, is hesitatingly expressed; and Johnson must have known how deceptive the memory as to such matters is, and how feeble a guide is the recollection of others' report of what they recollected. But even this hesitating doubt is completely dissipated as evidence when we find Johnson himself, twenty years before, fully accepting the book as genuine. In the Idler (No. 65, July 14, 1759) Johnson says, 66 with hopes like these, to the executors of Swift was committed the history of the last years of Queen Anne, and to those of Pope, the works which remained unprinted in his closet. The performances of Pope were burnt by those whom he had, perhaps, selected from all mankind as most likely to publish them: and the history had likewise perished, had not a straggling transcript fallen into busy hands."

* Doubtless his mind was gone but the world could not know that recovery was impossible.

This is inaccurate. It was in their

hands for a certain time during Swift's life. What became of it after his death we have no means of knowing.

With Johnson any doubt that is worth listening to, begins and ends. It was revived again by Lord Stanhope,* who in the text of the History of the Reign of Queen Anne speaks of " great reason to doubt:" and in the index names the work as "falsely ascribed to Swift." He tells us also that Macaulay had "more than once expressed (to Lord Stanhope) the conviction that it was not his." This is doubtless confirmed by a note which Macaulay has placed opposite the title of the book in the copy of Lord Orrery's Remarks, annotated by him in pencil, which the British Museum possesses-"Wretched stuff; and, I firmly believe not Swift's." But Macaulay's casually expressed convictions are belied by the fact that he actually quotes a description given in the book, of Lord Somers's manner, as written by one of his enemies.+ But a forger, who was at work half a century later, was neither a good authority on the peculiarities of Lord Somers, nor could he be called one of his "enemies."

So much for the growth of doubts which, once started, are apt to be pursued from mere love of paradox. They were revived in 1873, when Mr. Disraeli, in a speech at Glasgow, referred to the work as Swift's, and for so doing was accused by a correspondent in the Times, of surprising ignorance. The controversy which ensued threw no new light whatever on the subject.

APPENDIX IV.

THE MARRIAGE OF SWIFT AND STELLA

RATHER than encumber the narrative of Swift's life with a discussion so long as this must be, I have deemed it best to state separately the arguments in favour of his marriage. I must again acknowledge the invaluable aid which I have received from Mr. Elwin in weighing the evidence and in arranging the arguments. Much of what follows I might attribute entirely to him, were it not that by so doing I should impute to him, not only the merit of his own arguments, but the defects which may belong to my method of stating them.

For seventy years after the death of Swift, his marriage to Stella had come to be accepted, after the amount of doubt and discussion which was inseparable from a matter so mysterious, as a fact. But in 1820 Mr. Monck Mason published his "History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick." A large part of that volume is devoted to the life of Swift: and the principal, if not the only, novelty in that life is its maintenance of the proposition that the marriage, so long accepted, had no foundation at all in fact. Mason's book was published between the first and second editions of Scott's Swift: and in the latter edition (1824), while Scott notices the arguments which Mason had brought against him, he refuses to change his view in deference to them. Mason's view, however, was accepted by the late Mr. Dilke: and Mr. Forster, although he did not reach the point in Swift's life where a full discussion was possible, yet states ("Life of Swift," p. 140) that he "can find no evidence of a marriage that is at all reasonably sufficient." A recent writer in the Quarterly Review expresses, even more strongly, the same view.

Now, undoubtedly, it must be admitted that the course of Swift's biography would run more smoothly, and that expressions used in his letters would be more naturally and simply brought into accord with the facts, were it possible to set aside this marriage as a fabrication. Were it not so, the matter would need no argument at all. It must be admitted, further, that some of the evidence adduced is absolutely worthless, depending upon no more than the idle stories of those who sought to gain attention by inventing gossip. The truth must be reached by testing the more valid evidence adduced, and the arguments with which Monck Mason attempts to set this evidence aside.

To begin with the earliest in the order of time. Lord Orrery, in his Remarks on Swift, published in 1752, states (Letter II.), "Stella's real name was Johnson. She was the daughter of Sir William Temple's steward, and the concealed, but undoubted, wife of Dr. Swift. . . . . I cannot tell how long she remained in England, or whether she made more journeys than one to Ireland after Sir William Temple's death, but, if my informations are right, she was married to Dr. Swift in the year 1716, by Dr. Ashe, then Bishop of Clogher."

Next Dr. Delany, Swift's old and intimate friend, in his Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks, published in 1754, writes (p. 52), "Your Lordship's account of his marriage is, I am satisfied, true." He then turns to an explanation of Swift's conduct in a matter the truth of which he thinks beyond doubt and tells, on the authority of an intimate friend of his own, whose informant was Stella herself, the story of her refusal, as "too late," of Swift's offer to own the marriage about six years after the ceremony had taken place.

Before going into any further evidence, let us see how Mason deals with these two witnesses. "The first person," says Mason (p. 299), “that