se of Lords two
days after the Bill of Residence, Swift opposed in a spirited and
somewhat bitter manner. His opposition largely influenced the Lower
House in rejecting it. The two tracts which state the grounds of his
opposition to both bills are the present one, and the following tract,
"Considerations upon two Bills, sent down from the House of Lords to the
House of Commons in Ireland, relating to the Clergy."

Scott notes that the "tone of _aigreur_," which is more distinctly felt
in the second of these tracts, intimates a "deep dissatisfaction with
late ecclesiastical preferments, which may perhaps be traced as much to
personal disappointment as to any better cause;" a statement which it
was hardly worth making; since, however deep may have been Swift's
personal feelings, he never allowed them to be the impelling motive to
his work. It should suffice us to know that the cause which Swift
espoused was a disinterested one. As Vicar of Laracor he knew what it
was to make a shift of living on an insufficient income; and it may have
been, this experience as much as "personal disappointment" which gave
pungency to his criticism. It is easy enough to find questionable
motives for a satirist, especially when that satirist is Swift; let us
not, however, forget that in his case the personal element was never
permitted to overweight the impersonal purpose. Other men when they
reach prosperity often forget or ignore the hard conditions of their
previous state; to Swift these conditions were always existing factors
in his considerations for the amelioration of his fellow-men. This it is
which gives to his writings so much of the "tone of _aigreur_."

In his letter to John Stearne, Bishop of Clogher, dated July, 1733,
which is one of Swift's most characteristic epistles--characteristic,
because the embodiment of truthful candour--he gives no equivocal
expression of opinion on these two bills. He calls them, "abominable
bills, for enslaving and beggaring the clergy, (which took their birth
from hell)." "I call God to witness," he adds, "that I did then, and do
now, and shall for ever, firmly believe, that every Bishop who gave his
vote for either of these bills, did it with no other view (bating
further promotion), than a premeditated design, from the spirit of
ambition, and love of arbitrary power, to make the whole body of the
clergy their slaves and vassals until the day of judgment, under the
load of poverty and contempt."