, and begged that he might be confined in the house
while it was in his power to endanger his master; but the dean
resolutely turned him out, without taking farther notice of him, till
the term of information had expired, and then received him again. Soon
afterwards he ordered him and the rest of the servants into his
presence, without telling his intentions, and bade them take notice that
their fellow-servant was no longer Robert the butler; but that his
integrity had made him Mr. Blakeney, verger of St. Patrick's; an officer
whose income was between thirty and forty pounds a year: yet he still
continued, for some years, to serve his old master as his butler[103].

Swift was known, from this time, by the appellation of _the dean_. He
was honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of
Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and
duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth or
higher station.

He was, from this important year, the oracle of the traders, and the
idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and courted by all to
whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was necessary. The
Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which way soever the
eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of the nation's
gratitude to the Drapier.

The benefit was indeed great; he had rescued Ireland from a very
oppressive and predatory invasion; and the popularity which he had
gained he was diligent to keep, by appearing forward and zealous on
every occasion, where the publick interest was supposed to be involved.
Nor did he much scruple to boast his influence; for when, upon some
attempts to regulate the coin, archbishop Boulter, then one of the
justices, accused him of exasperating the people, he exculpated himself
by saying, "If I had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to
pieces."

But the pleasure of popularity was soon interrupted by domestick misery.
Mrs. Johnson, whose conversation was to him the great softener of the
ills of life, began in the year of the Drapier's triumph to decline;
and, two years afterwards, was so wasted with sickness, that her
recovery was considered as hopeless.

Swift was then in England, and had been invited by lord Bolingbroke to
pass the winter with him in France, but this call of calamity hastened
him to Ireland; where, perhaps, his presence contributed to restore her
to imperfect and totter