A TRUE NARRATIVE OF WHAT PASSED AT THE EXAMINATION OF THE MARQUIS DE GUISCARD, AT THE COCKPIT, MARCH 8, 1710-11; HIS STABBING MR. HARLEY; AND OTHER PRECEDENT AND SUBSEQUENT FACTS, RELATING TO THE LIFE OF THE SAID GUISCARD. FIRST PRINTED IN 1711. WITH THE PREAMBLE TO THE PATENT, FOR CREATING MR. HARLEY A PEER. «Yester "Yesterday was sent me a narrative printed, with all the cir "cumstances of Mr. Harley's stabbing. I had not time to do it "myself: so I sent my hints to the author of the Atalantis*; "and she has cooked it into a sixpenny pamphlet, in her own "style; only the first page is left as I was beginning it. But "I am afraid of disobliging Mr. Harley or Mr. St. John in one "critical point about it, and so would not do it myself. It is "worth your reading, for the circumstances ARE all true.” Journal to Stella, April 16, 1711.-The facts in this narrative. are confirmed by several other passages in the dean's works; particularly in the Examiner, No. XXXII, (in the third volume of this collection); and the share he had in it is acknowledged in Memoirs relating to the Change in the Queen's Ministry, vol. IV; and in the Journal to Stella, Nov. 3, 1711. * Mrs. Manley was also employed by Dr. Swift, in "A Learned Com. "ment upon Dr. Hare's excellent Sermon, preached before the Duke of “Marlborough, on the Surrender of Bouchain;" and in "A true Relation " of the several Tracts and Circumstances of the intended Riots and Tu"mults on Q. Elizabeth's Birthday;" and wrote "The Duke of Marl"borough's Vindication, &c. ;" See Journal to Stella, Nov. 3, 1711. Beside these three tracts (which are all inserted in this volume), she was supposed to have written "A Letter to the Examiner, concerning the Barrier "Treaty Vindicated [by Dr. Hare];" "A modest Inquiry into the Rea sons of the Joy expressed by a certain Set of People, upon the spreading 86 a Report of her Majesty's Death;" and, "An Answer to Baron Both. "mar's Memorial;" from hints suggested by the dean. A TRUE A TRUE NARRATIVE, ETC. THERE is nothing received with more pleasure in history, than the minute passages and circumstances of such facts as are extraordinary and surprising. We often lament to see an important accident nakedly told, stripped of those particularities which are most entertaining and instructive in such relations. This defect is frequent in all historians, not through their own fault, but for want of information. For while facts are fresh in memory, nobody takes care to record them, as thinking it idle to inform the world in what they know already; and by this means the accounts we have of them are only traditional, the circumstances forgotten, and perhaps supplied with false ones, or formed upon probabilities, according to the genius of the writer. But, beside the informing posterity on such occa sions, there is something due to the present age. People at distance are curious and concerned to know the particulars of great events, as well as those in the metropolis; and so are the neighbouring nations. And the relations they receive are usually either very imperfect, or misrepresented on purpose by the prejudice of party in the relators. I shall endeavour to avoid both these errours, in the fact I am going to relate; and, having made use вз of |