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MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,
IT is now some considerable time since I troubled you with my advice[1]; and, as I am growing old and infirm, I was in good hopes to have been quietly laid in my grave, before any occasion offered of ad-
- ↑ It is very manifest that this letter was not written by the dean; but, as it was at the time intended to be considered as his, and on that supposition had actually a good effect, it is here preserved as a curiosity. The reader may see its history in the following extract from Dr. Maty's Memoirs of Lord Chesterfield. "Dean Swift was still alive, when lord Chesterfield arrived[*]; but reduced to a state of total dotage and insensibility, which one month after ended in his death. This short interval was laid hold of, to publish under his name a new letter of a Drapier to the good people of Ireland, and particularly to the poor papists. It was so much in the dean's style, and was so greedily received, that it went through a variety of editions in a month's time. Indeed the many strokes of wit and humour that it contained, would induce me to suspect that his lordship had some share in it."* ↑ In Ireland, in the character of lord lieutenant.
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