stances are) which will be so agreeable as that of your long-expected advancement. It grieves me to the soul, that a person, who has been so instrumental to the raising of me from obscurity and distress, should not be yet set above the power of fortune, and the malice of those enemies your real merit has created. I beg, dear Sir, the continuance of your kind care and inspection over me; and that you would in all respects command, reprove, or instruct me as a father; for I protest to you, Sir, I do, and ever shall, honour and regard you with the affection of a son.

TO THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND.

Dec. 20, 1712.

MADAM, ANY other person, of less refinement and prudence than myself, would be at a loss how to thank your grace, upon the surprise of coming home last night, and finding two pictures* where only one was demanded. But I understand your grace's malice, and do here affirm you to be the greatest prude upon earth. You will not so much as let your picture be alone in a room with a man, no not with a clergyman, and a clergyman of five-and-forty: and therefore resolved my lord duke should accompany it, and keep me in awe, that I might not presume to look too often upon it. For my own part,

* "The Duchess of Ormond promised me her picture; and coming home to-night, I found her's and the duke's both in my chamber." Journal to Stella, Dec. 18, 1712.

I begin already to repent that I ever begged your grace's picture; and could almost find in my heart to send it you back: for, although it be the most beautiful sight I ever beheld, except the original, yet the veneration and respect it fills me with, will always make me think I am in your grace's presence; will hinder me from saying and writing twenty idle things that used to divert me: will set me labouring upon majestic, sublime ideas, at which I have no manner of talent; and will make those who come to visit me, think I am grown, on the sudden, wonderful stately and reserved. But, in life we must take the evil with the good; and it is one comfort, that I know how to be revenged. For the sight of your grace's resemblance will perpetually remind me of paying my duty to your person; which will give your grace the torment, and me the felicity, of a more frequent attendance.

But, after all, to deal plainly with your grace, your picture (and I must say the same of my lord duke's) will be of very little use, farther than to let others see the honour you are pleased to do me: for all the accomplishments of your mind and person are so deeply printed in the heart, and represent you so lively to my imagination, that I should take it for a high affront, if you believed it in the power of colours to refresh my memory: almost as high a one, as if your grace should deny me the justice of being, with the most profound respect and gratitude, Madam,

Your grace's &c.

JON. SWIFT.

TO ARCHBISHOP KING.

MY LORD,

London, Jan. 3, 1712-13.

SINCE I had the honour of your grace's letter, we have had a dead time of news and politics; and I make a conscience of writing to you without something that will recompense the trouble of reading. I cannot but grant that your grace, who are at a distance, and argue from your own wisdom and general observations and reading, is likely to be more impartial than I, who, in spite of my resolutions and opinion to the contrary, am forced to converse only with one side of the world, which fastens prejudices to me, notwithstanding all I can do to avoid them. Your grace has certainly hit upon the weak side of our peace; but I do not find you have prescribed any remedies. For, that of limiting France to a certain number of ships and troops, was, I doubt, not to be compassed. While that mighty kingdom remains under one monarch, it will be always in some degree formidable to its neighbours. But we flatter ourselves it is likely to be less so than ever, by the concurrence of many circumstances too long to trouble you with. But, my lord, what is to be done? I will go so far with your grace as to tell you, that some of our friends are of opinion with the other party, that if this last campaign had gone on with the conjunction of the

The risk of France and Spain being incorporated under one monarch.

British troops, France might have been in danger of being driven to great extremes. Yet I confess to you, at the same time, that if I had been first minister, I should have advised the queen to pursue her measures toward a peace.

Some accidents and occasions have put it in my way to know every step of this treaty better, I think, than any man in England. And I do assert to your grace, that if France had been closely pushed this campaign, they would, upon our refusal, have made offers to Holland, which the republic would certainly have accepted; and in that case, the interests of England would have been wholly laid aside, as we saw it three years ago at the Hague and Gertruydenberg. The Marshal d'Uxelles and Mesnager, two of the French plenipotentiaries, were wholly inclined to have begun by the Dutch; but the third, Abbé de Polignac, who has most credit with Monsieur Torcy, was for beginning by England.

There was a great faction in France by this proceeding and it was a mere personal resentment, in the French king and Monsieur Torcy, against the States, which hindered them from sending the first overture there. And I believe your grace will be convinced, by considering that the demands of Holland might be much more easily satisfied, than those of Britain. The States were very indifferent about the article of Spain being in the Bourbon family, as Monsieur Buys publickly owned when he was here, and among others to myself. They valued not the demolition of Dunkirk, the frontier of Portugal, nor the security of Savoy. They abhorred the thoughts of our having Gibraltar and Minorca, nor cared what became of our dominions in North America. All they had at heart was the sovereignty of Flanders, under the name of a bar

rier, and to stipulate what they could for the emperor, to make him easy under their encroachments. I can farther assure your grace, before any proposals were sent here from France, and ever since, until within these few months, the Dutch have been endeavouring constantly, by private intrigues with that court, to undermine us, and put themselves at the head of a treaty of peace; which is a truth that perhaps the world may soon be informed in, with several others that are little known. * Besides, my lord, I doubt whether you have sufficiently reflected on the condition of this kingdom, and the possibility of pursuing the war at that ruinous rate. This argument is not the weaker for being often urged. Besides, France is likely to have a long minority; or, if not, perhaps to be engaged in a civil war. And I do not find that in public affairs, human wisdom is able to make provisions for futurity, which are not liable to a thousand accidents. We have done all we can; and for the rest, curent posteri.

Sir William Temple's Memoirs, which you mentioned, is his first part, and was published twenty years ago; it is chiefly the treaty of Nimeguen, and was so well known, that I could hardly think your grace has not seen it.

I am in some doubt whether a fall from a horse be suitable to the dignity of an archbishop. It is one of the chief advantages in a great station that one is exempt from common accidents of that kind. The late king† indeed got a fall; but his majesty was a fox-hunter. I question whether you can

*Alluding to the historical work which he himself then projected.

+ King William III. was killed by a fall from his horse.