that, if I only look toward myself, I could wish you a private man to morrow: for I have nothing to ask; at least nothing that you will give, which is the same thing: and then you would see, whether I should not with much more willingness attend you in a retirement, whenever you please to give me leave, than ever I did at London or Windsor[1]. From these sentiments, I will never write to you, if I can help it, otherwise than as to a private man, or allow myself to have been obliged by you in any other capacity, &c."
And in one, many years after, dated October 11, 1722, expostulating with him in a friendly manner on his long silence, he says, "I never courted your acquaintance when you governed Europe, but you courted mine; and now you neglect me, when I use all my insinuations to keep myself in your memory. I am very sensible, that next to your receiving thanks and compliments, there is nothing you more hate than writing letters: but
- ↑ Lord Oxford had too soon reason to put this declaration of Swift's to the test, and found it nobly answered.
tory; as in some places he extols him to the skies, and in others, imputes great weakness and faults to him. But this arises from the view he gives of him in two different characters. As a publick minister, he represents him to have been one of the wisest, the ablest, and the most disinterested that ever lived; and he confirms this character by enumerating the many great services he had done to the state, without reaping the least advantage to himself, but rather injuring his private fortune. At the same time he shows that he was utterly unqualified to be the leader of a party, or to manage the private intrigues of a court; in which respects, partly from his natural disposition, and partly through want of true policy, he committed numberless errours; to which Swift alludes here, where he says, "In your publick capacity you have often angered me to the heart; but as a private man, never once."
