Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/256

ABOUT a month before the demise of queen Anne, the dean having laboured to reconcile the ministers to each other without success, retired to the house of a friend in Berkshire, and never saw them more. But during this retreat he wrote the following treatise, which he thought might be of some use even in that juncture, and sent it up to London to be printed; but, upon some difference in opinion between the author and the late lord Bolingbroke, the publication was delayed till the queen's death, and then he recalled his copy: it was afterwards placed in the hands of the late alderman Barber, from whom it was obtained to be printed. The ruin of the ministry, by this animosity among themselves, was long foreseen and foretold by Swift, and it appears by lord Bolingbroke's letter to sir William Wyndham, that in his heart he renounced his friendship for Oxford long before the conclusion of the peace, though it did not appear till afterwards. "The peace," says he, "which had been judged to be the only solid foundation whereupon we could erect a tory system, and yet when it was made we found ourselves at a stand; nay the very work, which ought to have been the basis of our strength, was in part demolished before our eyes, and we were stoned with the ruins of it." This event probably rendered the disunion of the ministry visible; some, principally endeavouring to secure themselves, some, still labouring to establish at all events the party they had espoused, which saw nothing but, "increase of mortification, and nearer approaches to ruin:" and it is not to be wondered at, that when this treatise was written, the dean's attempts to reconcile his friends were unsuccessful; for Bolingbroke declares, that he abhorred Oxford to such a degree, that he would rather have suffered banishment or death, than have taken measures in concert with him to have avoided either.