whom he represents as afterwards fuing

for pardon.

Harley's defigns and fituation were fuch as made him glad of an auxiliary fo well qualified for his fervice; he therefore foon admitted him to familiarity, whether ever to confidence fome have made a doubt; but it would have been difficult to excite his zeal without perfuading him that he was trufted, and not very eafy to delude him by false perfuafions.

He was certainly admitted to thofe meetings in which the firft hints and original plan of action are fupposed to have been formed; and was one of the fixteen Minifters, or agents of the Minis try, who met weekly at each other's

houses,

houfes, and were united by the name of

Brother.

Being not immediately confidered as an obdurate Tory, he converfed indifcriminately with all the wits, and was yet the friend of Steele; who, in the Tatler, which began in 1710, confeffes the advantages of his converfation, and mentions fomething contributed by him to his paper. But he was now immerging. into political controverfy; for the fame year produced the Examiner, of which Swift wrote thirty-three papers. In argu ment he may be allowed to have the advantage; for where a wide fyftem of conduct, and the whole of a publick character, is laid open to enquiry, the accufer having the choice of facts, must be very unskilful

if he does not prevail; but with regard to wit, I am afraid none of Swift's pa pers will be found equal to those by which Addison oppofed him.

Early in the next year he published a Propofal for correcting, improving, and afcertaining the English Tongue, in a Let ter to the Earl of Oxford; written without much knowledge of the general nature of language, and without any ac curate enquiry into the hiftory of other tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience, he thinks attainable, he propofes to fecure by inftituting an academy; the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud to difobey, and which, being renewed

newed by fucceffive elections, would in a fhort time have differed from itself.

He wrote the fame year a Letter, to the October Club, a number of Tory Gentlemen fent from the country to Parlialiament, who formed themselves into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to animate the zeal and raise the expectations of each other. They thought, with great reason, that the Minifters were lofing opportunities; that fufficient ufe was not made of the general ardour of the nation; they called loudly, for more changes, and ftronger efforts; and demanded the punishment of part, and the difmiffion of the reft, of those whom they confidered as publick robbers.

Their eagerness was not gratified by the Queen, or by Harley. The Queen was probably flow because she was afraid, and Harley was flow because he was doubtful; he was a Tory only by neceffity, or for convenience; and when he had power in his hands, had no fettled purpose for which he fhould employ it; forced to gratify to a certain degree the Tories who fupported him, but unwilling to make his reconcilement to the Whigs utterly defperate, he correfponded at once with the two expectants of the Crown, and kept, as has been obferved, the fucceffion undetermined. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing; ⚫ and with the fate of a double-dealer, at last he loft his power, but kept his enemies.

Swift

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