ever hath
seen had writ against Harley, and not for him, what a history had he left
behind of the last years of Queen Anne's reign! But Swift, that scorned
all mankind, and himself not the least of all, had this merit of a
faithful partisan, that he loved those chiefs who treated him well, and
stuck by Harley bravely in his fall, as he gallantly had supported him in
his better fortune.

Incomparably more brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, accomplished, than
his rival, the great St. John could be as selfish as Oxford was, and could
act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk
was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the
pillory against his opponents, than if he had been at Lisbon and Grand
Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St.
Germains too; notoriously of no religion, he toasted Church and queen as
boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and to serve
his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax, bully,
wheedle, fawn on the Court favourite, and creep up the back-stair as
silently as Oxford who supplanted Marlborough, and whom he himself
supplanted. The crash of my Lord Oxford happened at this very time whereat
my history is now arrived. He was come to the very last days of his power,
and the agent whom he employed to overthrow the conqueror of Blenheim, was
now engaged to upset the conqueror's conqueror, and hand over the staff of
government to Bolingbroke, who had been panting to hold it.

In expectation of the stroke that was now preparing, the Irish regiments
in the French service were all brought round about Boulogne in Picardy, to
pass over if need were with the Duke of Berwick; the soldiers of France no
longer, but subjects of James the Third of England and Ireland King. The
fidelity of the great mass of the Scots (though a most active, resolute,
and gallant Whig party, admirably and energetically ordered and
disciplined, was known to be in Scotland too) was notoriously unshaken in
their king. A very great body of Tory clergy, nobility, and gentry, were
public partisans of the exiled prince; and the indifferents might be
counted on to cry King George or King James, according as either should
prevail. The queen, especially in her latter days, inclined towards her
own family. The prince was lying actually in London, within a stone's-cast
of his sister's palace; the first minister toppling to his fa