thrice expressly affirmed, that Mr. Skelton had not named either place or person. There is one circumstance in Levi's Narrative which may deceive the reader. He says, "Mr. Skelton was taken into the dining-room;" this dining-room is a ground-room next the street, and Mr. Skelton never went further than the door of it. His many prevarications in this whole affair, and the many thousand various ways of telling his story, are too tedious to be related. I shall therefore conclude with one remark. By the true account given in this paper it appears, that Mr. Skelton, finding his mistake before he spake a word, begged Mr. Levi's pardon, and by way of apology told him, "his visit was intended to Mr. Lewis of my Lord Dartmouth's office, to thank him for the service he had done him, in passing the privy-seal." It is probable that Mr. Levi's low intellectuals were deluded by the word service, which he took as compliments from some persons, and then it was easy to find names: Thus, what his ignorance and simplicity misled him to begin, his malice taught him to propagate. I have been the more solicitous to set this matter in a clear light, because Mr. Lewis being employed and trusted in public affairs, if this report had prevailed, persons of the first rank might possibly have been wounded through his sides.1 This account was published February 2nd, and was confirmed in the "Gazette" of the following day by three advertisements, containing the respective affidavits of Erasmus Lewis, Esq., Charles Ford, Esq., and Brigadier Skelton. [N.] SOME REASONS TO PROVE THAT NO PERSON IS OBLIGED BY HIS PRINCIPLES, AS A WHIG, TO OPPOSE HER MAJESTY OR HER PRESENT MINISTRY. IN A LETTER TO A WHIG LORD. NOTE. In a note to his reprint of this tract Nichols thinks (Suppl. to Swift's Works, vol. i., p. 199, 1779) the Whig Lord for whom this letter was intended was Richard Lumley, Earl of Scarborough. The same authority, however, finds from a MS. note of Charles Ford, Swift's intimate friend, that the Whig Lord was Lord Ashburnham, who married Lady Mary Butler, daughter to the Duke of Ormond. The latter seems to be the more likely surmise; having once been a Whig, he was, at the time the letter was written, a Tory, and showed symptoms of going back to his old party friends. It matters little, however, to what particular individual the letter was addressed, since Swift intended an appeal to all those persons who might be wavering in their political faiths. As Mr. Churton Collins (see his "Study of Swift," p. 109) points out: "Its design is to confirm the Tories in their allegiance to their chief, and to make converts of the doubtful Whigs." Moreover, it is also, in effect, "an elaborate defence and justification of Harley's policy of compromise," and as such, ably supports his advice to the members of the October Club. In his letter to Stella, 17th June, 1712, Swift writes: "Things are now in the way of being soon in the extremes of well or ill: I hope and believe the first. Lord Wharton is gone out of town in a rage; and curses himself and friends for ruining themselves in defending lords Marlborough and Godolphin, and taking Nottingham into their favour. He swears he will meddle no more during this reign; a pretty speech at sixty-six; and the queen is near twenty years younger, and now in very good health! Read the Letter to a Whig Lord." The text of the present edition is that of the original issue, by John Morphew, in 1712, compared with that of the quarto edition of the Works, published in 1779 (vol. xiv.). [T. S.] |