d
to talk in so frank a manner that he seemed to discover the bottom
of his heart. In the Memoirs relating to the Change in the Queen's
Ministry, Swift says that Somers had one and only one unconversable
fault, formality. It is not very easy to understand how the same man
can be the most unreserved of companions and yet err on the side of
formality. Yet there may be truth in both the descriptions. It is well
known that Swift loved to take rude liberties with men of high rank and
fancied that, by doing so, he asserted his own independence. He has been
justly blamed for this fault by his two illustrious biographers, both
of them men of spirit at least as independent as his, Samuel Johnson
and Walter Scott. I suspect that he showed a disposition to behave with
offensive familiarity to Somers, and that Somers, not choosing to submit
to impertinence, and not wishing to be forced to resent it, resorted,
in selfdefence, to a ceremonious politeness which he never would have
practised towards Locke or Addison.]

[Footnote 478: The eulogies on Somers and the invectives against him are
innumerable. Perhaps the best way to come to a just judgment would be to
collect all that has been said about him by Swift and by Addison. They
were the two keenest observers of their time; and they both knew him
well. But it ought to be remarked that, till Swift turned Tory, he
always extolled Somers not only as the most accomplished, but as the
most virtuous of men. In the dedication of the Tale of a Tub are these
words, "There is no virtue, either of a public or private life, which
some circumstances of your own have not often produced upon the stage of
the world;" and again, "I should be very loth the bright example of your
Lordship's virtues should be lost to other eyes, both for their sake and
your own." In the Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions at Athens
and Rome, Somers is the just Aristides. After Swift had ratted he
described Somers as a man who "possessed all excellent qualifications
except virtue."]

[Footnote 479: See Whiston's Autobiography.]

[Footnote 480: Swift's note on Mackay's Character of Wharton.]

[Footnote 481: This account of Montague and Wharton I have collected
from innumerable sources. I ought, however, to mention particularly the
very curious Life of Wharton published immediately after his death.]

[Footnote 482: Much of my information about the Harleys I have derived
from unpublished memoirs written by Edwar