his entertainment, that some time after he gave the
Doctor a church living to the value of almost one hundred pounds a year,
and made him one of his chaplains, from an antiquated notion, that good
schoolmasters ought to be encouraged in every nation, professing
civility and religion. Yet his Excellency did not venture to make this
bold step without strong recommendations from persons of undoubted
principles, fitted to the times; who thought themselves bound in
justice, honour, and gratitude, to do the Doctor a good office in return
for the care he had taken of their children, or those of their
friends.[159] Yet the catastrophe was terrible: For, the Doctor in the
height of his felicity and gratitude, going down to take possession of
his parish, and furnished with a few led-sermons, whereof as it is to be
supposed the number was very small, having never served a cure in the
Church; he stopped at Cork to attend on his bishop; and going to church
on the Sunday following, was according to the usual civility of country
clergymen, invited by the minister of the parish to supply the pulpit.
It happened to be the first of August[160]; and the first of August
happened that year to light upon a Sunday: And it happened that the
Doctor's text was in these words; "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof;" and lastly it happened, that some one person of the
congregation, whose loyalty made him watchful upon every appearance of
danger to his Majesty's person and Government, when service was over,
gave the alarm. Notice was immediately sent up to town, and by the zeal
of one man[161] of no large dimensions of body or mind, such a clamour
was raised, that we in Dublin could apprehend no less than an invasion
by the Pretender, who must be landed in the South. The result was, that
the Doctor must be struck out of the chaplains' list, and appear no more
at the Castle; yet, whether he were then, or be at this day, a Whig or a
Tory, I think is a secret; only it is manifest, that he is a zealous
Hanoverian, at least in poetry,[162] and a great adorer of the present
Royal Family through all its branches. His friends likewise assert, that
he had preached this same sermon often, under the same text; that not
having observed the words till he was in the pulpit, and had opened his
notes; as he is a person a little abstracted, he wanted presence of mind
to change them: And that in the whole sermon there was not a syllable
relating to Government