size
the authenticity.

An interesting sidelight on Swift's History is thrown by Chesterfield in
a letter he wrote to Dr. Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford, on May 23rd,
1758. We must believe that the noble lord wrote in good faith and
certainly in the full belief that the work he was criticising was the
work of Swift. Chesterfield's criticism points directly to Swift as the
author, since his justification for Bolingbroke's story is to be found
in the work as Lucas printed it in 1758. Speaking of the History,
Chesterfield calls it "a party pamphlet, founded on the lie of the day,
which, as lord Bolingbroke who had read it often assured me, was coined
and delivered out to him, to write Examiners, and other political papers
upon. That spirit remarkably runs through it. Macarteney, for instance,
murdered duke Hamilton;[4] nothing is falser, for though Macarteney was
very capable of the vilest actions, he was guiltless of that, as I
myself can testify, who was at his trial on the king's bench, when he
came over voluntarily to take it, in the late king's time. There did not
appear even the least ground for a suspicion of it; nor did Hamilton,
who appeared in court, pretend to tax him with it, which would have been
in truth accusing himself of the utmost baseness, in letting the
murderer of his friend go off from the field of battle, without either
resentment, pursuit, or even accusation, till three days afterwards.
This _lie_ was invented to inflame the Scotch nation against the Whigs;
as the other, that prince Eugene intended to murder lord Oxford, by
employing a set of people called Mohocks, which society, by the way,
never existed, was calculated to inflame the mob of London. Swift took
those hints _de la meilleure foi du monde_, and thought them materials
for history. So far he is blameless."[5]

[Footnote 4: See page 178 of this volume.]

[Footnote 5: "Chesterfield's Works," pp. 498-499.]

Ignoring Chesterfield's indignation, we must believe that the references
made by him to Macartney and Eugene, must have been in the manuscript
Bolingbroke read; else how could Bolingbroke tell Chesterfield of their
meaning? If this be so, we have a still further warrant for a strong
presumption in favour of authenticity. There can really be very little
doubt on the matter.

What we may doubt, however, is not the authenticity, but the value of
the History as an historical document. Without question, Swift wrote in
good faith; but he