His earnestness to communicate this history to the publick is evident in many of his letters. In 1736, it was actually intended for the press; and in April, 1738, the dean expressed his dissatisfaction at the publication being so long delayed. Whatever motives might have then existed for such delay, whether tenderness to living characters, or more prudential reasons, a period of forty years must totally have removed them. The rage of party is subsided; and we may be allowed to contemplate the reign of Anne as impartially as that of Elizabeth.
At length this history was committed to the press in the year 1758[1]; under the censure, it may be said, of its own editor; in justice to whom, however we may differ in opinion concerning Dr. Swift's candour, the editor's Advertisement is preserved entire. In the same year also it met with some severe strictures from another writer[2]. These we shall give too in his own words; and then fairly submit "The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen" to the judgment of the publick:
"These characters, and the history from whence they have been extracted, may serve as a striking example of the melancholy effects of prejudice and party zeal; a zeal, which, whilst it corrupts the heart, vitiates the understanding itself; and could mislead a writer of so penetrating a genius as Dr. Swift, to imagine that posterity would accept satire in the place of history, and would read with satistion a performance, in which the courage and military skill of the duke of Marlborough are called
- ↑ Printed for A. Millar; and, in 1767, it was inserted by Mr. Tonson in a small edition of the Dean's Works.
- ↑ The compiler of the Annual Register, 1758.
