The Public Spirit of the Whigs." The
assumed and sarcastic defence of Collins must be taken as a Swiftian
dodge to bring odium and suspicion on the opponents of the Tory
ministry, by showing that the propounders of the hateful and ridiculous
atheism were themselves Whigs.

Sir Henry Craik, in a note to his reprint of this tract ("Selections
from Swift," Oxford, 1893, vol. ii. p. 42), agrees with Scott as to the
motive which urged Swift in writing it. "In this later tract," he says,
"Swift makes no attempt to cloak his enmity; and he boldly assumes the
character of a Whig as the propounder of those atheistical absurdities,
which he wished, as a useful political move, but without any scrupulous
regard to fairness, to represent as part and parcel of the tenets of
that party." "What gave colour," says Scott, "though only a colour, to
his charge was, that Toland, Tindal, Collins, and most of those who
carried to licence their abhorrence of Church-government, were naturally
enough enrolled among that party in politics who professed most
attachment to freedom of sentiment." It must not, however, be forgotten,
that Swift's attachment to his Church, as it influenced him against the
Whigs, would naturally influence him against the deistical writers also,
and that he must be credited, to that extent, with honesty of purpose.
That these writers were Whigs was, if one may so put it, an accident, of
which it would have been more than a human act for Swift not to take
advantage, for party purposes.

Curiously enough, none of Swift's more modern biographers have thought
this imitation of Collins's "Discourse" worthy of a mention; yet it is,
in its way, as fine a performance as his castigation of Bishop Burnet
and his "Introduction." The fooling is admirably carried on, and the
intention, as explained in the introduction, is excellently well
realized. It frightened Collins into Holland. To appreciate the
cleverness with which it has been done, one should read Swift's
"Abstract" side by side with Collins's "Discourse."

The pamphlet was advertised for sale in "The Examiner" for Tuesday,
January 26th, 1712-13. In His "Letters to Stella" (January 16th and
21st, 1712-13), Swift makes the following references to it: "I came home
at seven, and began a little whim which just came into my head, and will
make a three-penny pamphlet. It shall be finished in a week; and, if it
succeeds, you shall know what it is; otherwise not. ... I was to-day