us young
man; but instead of residing, I dare say he will be eternally flying
backwards and forwards to London; and therefore I entreat that he may be
provided for in some other place.'

Swift was accordingly set aside on account of youth, and from the year
1702, to the change of the ministry in the year 1710, few circumstances
of his life can be found sufficiently material to be inserted here. From
this last period, 'till the death of Queen Anne, we find him fighting on
the side of the Tories, and maintaining their cause in pamphlets, poems,
and weekly papers. In one of his letters to Mr. Pope he has this
expression, 'I have conversed, in some freedom, with more ministers of
state, of all parties, than usually happens to men of my level; and, I
confess, in their capacity as ministers I look upon them as a race of
people, whose acquaintance no man would court otherwise, than on the
score of vanity and ambition.' A man always appears of more consequence
to himself, than he is in reality to any other person. Such, perhaps,
was the case of Dr. Swift. He knew how useful he was to the
administration in general; and in one of his letters he mentions, that
the place of historiographer was intended for him; but in this
particular he flattered himself; at least, he remained without any
preferment 'till the year 1713, when he was made dean of St. Patrick's.
In point of power and revenue, such a deanery might be esteemed no
inconsiderable promotion; but to an ambitious mind, whose perpetual view
was a settlement in England, a dignity in any other country must appear
only a profitable and an honourable kind of banishment. It is very
probable, that the temper of Swift might occasion his English friends to
wish him promoted at a distance. His spirit was ever untractable. The
motions of his genius were often irregular. He assumed more of the air
of a patron, than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than
advise. He was elated with the appearance of enjoying ministerial
confidence. He enjoyed the shadow indeed, but the substance was detained
from him. He was employed, not entrusted; and at the same time he
imagined himself a subtle diver, who dextrously shot down into the
profoundest regions of politics, he was suffered only to sound the
shallows nearest the shore, and was scarce admitted to descend below the
froth at the top. Swift was one of those strange kind of Tories, who
lord Bolingbroke, in his letter to Sir William Wyndha