and he knew that
when obtained it had been simply thrust upon the Irish authorities,
Parliament, and people without any previous sanction or knowledge on
their part. Very likely he was also convinced, or had convinced
himself, that the patent and the new coin would be injurious to the
revenues and the trade of the country. Certainly, if he was not
convinced of this, he gave to all his diatribes against Wood, Wood's
patent, and Wood's halfpence the tones of profoundest conviction. He
assumed the character of a draper for the moment--why he chose to spell
draper "drapier" nobody knew--and he certainly succeeded in putting on
all the semblance of an honest trader driven to homely and robust
indignation by an impudent proposal to injure the business of himself
and his neighbors. In England, he says, "the halfpence and farthings
pass for very little more than they are worth, and if you should beat
them to pieces and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose much
above a penny in a shilling." But he goes on to say that Mr. Wood,
whom he describes as "a mean, ordinary man, a hardware dealer"--Wood
was, as we have already seen, a large owner of iron and copper mines
and works, but that was all one to Dean Swift--"made his halfpence of
such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the
brazier would hardly give you {245} above a penny of good money for a
shilling of his; so that this sum of one hundred and eight thousand
pounds in good gold and silver may be given for trash that will not be
worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value." Nor is even
this the worst, he contends, "for Mr. Wood, when he pleases, may by
stealth send over another hundred and eight thousand pounds and buy all
our goods for eleven parts in twelve under the value." "For example,"
says Swift, "if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings
apiece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the payment in
Wood's coin, he really receives only the value of five shillings." Of
course this is the wildest exaggeration--is, in fact, mere extravagance
and absurdity, if regarded as a financial proposition. But Swift
understood, as hardly any other man understood, the art of employing
exaggeration with such an effect as to make it do the business of
unquestionable fact. He was able to make his literary coins pass for
much more than Wood could do with his halfpence and farthings. The
artistic skill which bade the creatu