The Duke of Schomberg was killed at the Battle of the Boyne, and was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral. When Swift was appointed dean, no stone marked the soldier's resting-place, and Swift, to whom nothing was indifferent, which touched the beauty and dignity of the Church committed to his charge, demanded of Schomberg's heirs, by letters and by the intervention of friends, that they should put up a suitable monument. The demand was made in vain, and Swift punished the neglect and discourtesy by erecting a monument himself, and by commemorating in a lapidary inscription the careless ingratitude of Schomberg's descendants. Had Swift wished to stand well with the Court, he would not thus have risked its good opinion. George II declared in a fury that Dr Swift's design was to make him quarrel with the King of Prussia, and henceforth regarded the Dean of St Patrick's with a still acuter suspicion. But Swift had done what he thought right, and made to Lord Bathurst a characteristic and ironical comment upon his own action. "Thus I endeavour,"
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