utter independence, and receiving no obligation in return, while he was daily conferring the greatest upon them. It was on this account that he refused to be chaplain to lord Oxford, who made an offer of it to him, the very day after his being created lord Oxford, and appointed lord treasurer. In his Journal to Stella, of the 24th of May 1711, there is this passage: "My lord Oxford cannot yet abide to be called my lord; and when I called him my lord, he called me Dr. Thomas Swift[1], which he always does when he has a mind to tease me. By a second hand, he proposed my being his chaplain, which I by a second hand excused; but we had no talk of it to day; but I will be no man's chaplain alive." And in his Preface to the History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne, he says, "I absolutely refused to be chaplain to the lord treasurer, because I thought it would but ill become me to be in a state of dependence." For the same reason, very early after his connection with the ministry, he refused to accept of a living from the lord keeper, which he thus mentions in his Journal: "Lord keeper told me, some months ago, he would give me a living when I pleased; but I told him I would not take any from him." There have been several instances before given of his early conduct toward the ministry, showing, that he expected to be treated by them on a footing of perfect equality; of which he never slipped any opportunity of reminding them. In a letter to the lord treasurer, he says, "When I was with you, I have said more than once, that I would never allow
- ↑ A cousin german of Swift, whom he held in the utmost contempt.
