after its
publication, that "the history had perished had not a straggling
transcript fallen into busy hands." If the straggling manuscript were
worth anything, it must have had some claims to authenticity; and if it
had, then Johnson's recollection of what he heard Orrery and Lewis say,
twenty years or more after they had said it, goes for very little.

Sir Walter Scott concludes, from the fact that Swift sent the manuscript
to Oxford and Lewis, that it was afterwards altered in accordance with
Lewis's suggestions. But a comparison of Lucas's text with Lewis's
letter shows that nothing of the kind was done.

Lord Stanhope had "very great reason to doubt" the authenticity of the
History, and considered it as "falsely ascribed to Swift." What this
"very great reason" was, his lordship nowhere stated.

Macaulay, in a pencilled note in a copy of Orrery's "Remarks" (now in
the British Museum) describes the History as "Wretched stuff; and I
firmly believe not Swift's." But Macaulay could scarcely have had much
ground for his note, since he took a description of Somers from the
History, and embodied it in his own work as a specimen of what Somers's
enemies said of him. If the History were a forgery, what object was
gained in quoting from it, and who were the enemies who wrote it?

When, in 1873, Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, made a speech at
Glasgow, in which he quoted from the History and spoke of the words as
by Swift, a correspondent in the "Times" criticised him for his
ignorance in so doing. But the discussion which followed in the columns
of that periodical left the matter just where it was, and, indeed,
justified Beaconsfield. The matter was taken up by Mr. Edward Solly in
"Notes and Queries;" but that writer threw no new light whatever on the
subject.

But the positive evidence in favour of the authenticity is so strong,
that one wonders how there could have been any doubt as to whether Swift
did or did not write the History.

In the first place we know that Swift was largely indebted for his facts
to Bolingbroke, when that statesman was the War Secretary of Queen Anne.
A comparison of those portions of Swift's History which contain the
facts with the Bolingbroke Correspondence, in which the same facts are
embodied, will amply prove that Swift obtained them from this source,
and as Swift was the one man of the time to whom such a favour was
given, the argument in favour of Swift's authorship obtains an