he possession of judge Berwick and ascribed to
Francis Bindon]

THE PROSE WORKS

OF

JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.

EDITED BY

TEMPLE SCOTT

VOL. VI

THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS

1903

CHISWICK PRESS CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON

INTRODUCTION

In 1714 Swift left England for Ireland, disappointed, distressed, and
worn out with anxiety in the service of the Harley Ministry. On his
installation as Dean of St. Patrick's he had been received in Dublin
with jeering and derision. He had even been mocked at in his walks
abroad. In 1720, however, he entered for the second time the field of
active political polemics, and began with renewed energy the series of
writings which not only placed him at the head and front of the
political writers of the day, but secured for him a place in the
affections of the people of Ireland--a place which has been kept sacred
to him even to the present time. A visitor to the city of Dublin
desirous of finding his way to St. Patrick's Cathedral need but to ask
for the Dean's Church, and he will be understood. There is only one
Dean, and he wrote the "Drapier's Letters." The joy of the people of
Dublin on the withdrawal of Wood's Patent found such permanent
expression, that it has descended as oral tradition, and what was
omitted from the records of Parliament and the proceedings of Clubs and
Associations founded in the Drapier's honour, has been embalmed in the
hearts of the people, whose love he won, and whose homage it was ever
his pride to accept.

The spirit of Swift which Grattan invoked had, even in Grattan's time,
power to stir hearts to patriotic enthusiasm. That spirit has not died
out yet, and the Irish people still find it seasonable and refreshing to
be awakened by it to a true sense of the dignity and majesty of
Ireland's place in the British Empire.

A dispassionate student of the condition of Ireland between the years
of Swift's birth and death--between, say, 1667 and 1745--could rise from
that study in no unprejudiced mood. It would be difficult for him to
avoid the conclusion that the government of Ireland by England had not
only degraded the people of the vassal nation, but had proved a disgrace
and a stigma on the ruling nation. It was a government of the masses by
the classes, for no other than selfish ends. It ended, as all such
governments must inevitably end, in impoverishing the people, in
wholes