TO THE REV. MR. WILLIAM DRAPER, DEAN, NEAR BASINGSTOKE, hampshire". SIR, LONDON, APRIL 13, 1713. I AM ashamed to tell you how ill a philosopher I am, and that a very ill situation of my affairs for three weeks past, made me utterly incapable of answering your obliging letter, and thanking you for your most agreable copy of verses. The prints will tell you that I am condemned again to live in Ireland; and all that the court and ministry did for me was to let me choose my situation in the country where I am banished. I could not forbear showing both your letter and verses to our great men, as well as to the men of wit of my acquaintance; and they were highly approved by all. I am altogether a stranger to your friend Appian ; and am a little angry when those who have a genius lay it out in translations. I question whether Res angusta domi' be not one of your motives. Perhaps you want such a bridle as a translation, for your genius is too fruitful, as appears by the frequency of your similes; and this employment may teach you to write like a modest man, as Shakspeare expresses it. I have been minding my lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Harcourt, and sir William Windham, to solicit my * First printed in Mr. Seward's Biographiana, 1799, from the original in the possession of that excellent instructor of youth, Dr. Valpey, of Reading. lord lord chancellor to give you a living, as a business which belongs our society, who assume the title of rewarders of merit. They are all very well disposed, and I shall not fail to negotiate for you while I stay in England, which will not be above six weeks; but I hope to return in October, and if you are not then provided for, I will move Heaven and earth that something may be done for you. Our Society has not met of late, else I would have moved to have two of us sent in form to request a living for you from my lord chancellor; and, if you have any way to employ my services, I desire you will let me know it, and believe me to be very sincerely, Sir, Your most faithful, humble servant, J. SWIFT. FROM A QUAKER *. WHEN THREE HUNDRED POUNDS WERE OFFERED FOR TAKING UP THE DRAPIER. AND the people said unto Saul, shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in * Another member of this pacifick tribe has testified his esteem for our author in a more substantial manner, if we may be allowed to say, "A solid gammon weighs down empty praise." See p. 266, of this volume. "Israel? "Israel? God forbid: As the LORD liveth, there "shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; "for he wrought with GoD this day. So the peo"ple rescued Jonathan, that he died not*." FROM SIR JOHN BROWNE. DAWSON STREET, APRIL 4, 1728. REV. SIR, BY Y a strange fatality, though you were the only person in the world from whom I would conceal my being an author, yet you were unaccountably the only one let into the secret of it: the ignorant poor man who was entrusted by me to deliver out the little books, though he kept the secret from all others, yet, from the nature of the subject, concluded that I could have no interest in concealing it from you, who were so universally known to be an indefatigable promoter of the welfare of Ireland. But, though the accident gave me some uneasiness at first; yet, when I consider your character, I cannot doubt (however slender the foundation of such a hope may be from any merits of my own) your generosity will oblige you to conceal what chance + This treatise was, "A Memorial of the poor Inhabitants, "Tradesmen, and Labourers, of the Kingdom of Ireland;" to which Dr. Swift immediately published an answer, dated March 25, 1728; and printed in this collection, vol. ix, p. 209. has has revealed to you, and incline you to judge of me, not from the report of my enemies, but from what I appear in the little tracts which have waited on you. I shall not presume, sir, to detain you with the narrative of the original and progress of the parliamentary accusations and votes against me; although, would you do me the honour to inquire, I could easily convince you, from my own particular case, that men have two characters, one which is either good or bad, according to the prevailing number of their friends or enemies; and one which never varies for either one which has little or no regard to the virtue or vice of the subject, and one which regards that alone, is inherent (if I may say so) in the subject, and describes it what it really is, without regard either to friends or enemies. All I shall beg of you is, to suspend your judgment upon it; since all parties allow that, although I had several summons from the committee for Mon day, and many evidences on the road in obedience. to their summons, yet I was tied down by the committee the preceding Saturday, and deprived of the benefit of all my evidences, notwithstanding any. thing I could urge to the contrary. This, I hope, I may say without injury to Mr. Bingham: for sure he may be entirely innocent, and yet a magistrate under the immediate direction of the lord chief justice who takes examinations against him, examinations, that do not even contain matter to form an indictment upon, may be innocent also. It shall suffice therefore to say, I went from Ireland loaded with the severest censures of the house of commons injured, as I thought, and oppressed to to the greatest degree imaginable; robbed of that character which was dearer to me than life itself; and all that by an overbearing, overpowering in terest. I sought in England for that peace and protection which was denied me at home. My publick character followed me: my countrymen avoided me. The nature of man is sociable: I was forced to herd with strangers. A prime minister, engaged in the success of a scheme, wants no emissaries to spy out all that makes for him, and to fly with what they have found to their employer. I was unfortunately set by those sort of creatures: my sentiments on the state of our money matters were industriously sifted through me; and when that was done, before I knew any thing of the matter, I was served with his majesty's summons: in a hurry I ran out of town, and staid in the country awhile; but, on my return again, found another summons at my lodgings; and terrified by the dismal effects of power at home from risking a second shipwreck abroad, I yielded to it, and appeared at the cockpit. It is true, my appearance at the cockpit, to those who knew me only by the votes of the house of commons, must have looked like a design of a revenge; and I had many and powerful enemies, who gave all my actions the worst colour. But, to take the matter impartially, sir, is there no allowance to be made for a mind already broken by the dismal effects of prevailing power, and filled with the apprehensions of second dangers? Is there no allowance for a man, young in the knowledge of the world, under all these fears and misfortunes, if he has yielded to the repeated summons of the council of England, in which |