(stand as near as you please, or as you can) will not be found to carry with them any marks of superior parts: nor did T. S. attempt giving any other proof, that I ever saw or heard of, to the world. So that, although he certainly put in his claim to a share here, it appears to have been little regarded: and Jonathan has as certainly the whole credit.
In March 1766, a copy of the first edition of the Tale of a Tub was sold (for 5s. 6d. only) at an auction of books, by S. Baker: this copy had, it seems, belonged to Sheffield duke of Bucks; with whom dean Swift does not appear either to have had, or to have wished for, any intimacy[1]. In the first blank leaf the duke (as is believed and there affirmed) had written these words: "What follows here written, is all by the hand of Mr. Thomas Swift:" or something of this tenour. In the next page T. S. has given the following anecdotes[2]:
"The
- ↑ Consult on this head the Journal to Stella, Dec. 19, 1710; May 19, and Sept. 8, 1711. Swift says himself, he never was in the duke's company above once; or twice at the most. In a Life of Mr. Pope, printed in 1769, it is observed; that Dr. Arbuthnot took Pope to task, for being so much acquainted with John of Bucks: [which was the cant and familiar name his Grace was called by.] "He has neither esteem nor love for you," said the Doctor; "and only wants to cheat you;" and Pope soon found the truth of this; but, though he fell into the snare, and bought an annuity of the duke, being over-persuaded by him; yet in the end his Grace over-reached himself; for he suppposed, from the delicacy of Mr. Pope's constitution, that he would live but a short time.
- ↑ These are, word for word, the same as what appear in a pamphlet printed for Curll in 1710, with this title; "A complete Key to the Tale of a Tub; with some account of the Authors, the occasion and design of writing it, and Mr. Wotton's Remarks examined. London, printed for Edmund Curll,
