town and in every
hamlet throughout England. It was an appeal made, not to the political
cliques of the metropolis, but to the whole kingdom; and to the whole
kingdom it spoke.... No one who will take the trouble to glance at
Swift's contributions to 'The Examiner' will be surprised at their
effect. They are masterpieces of polemical skill. Every sentence--every
word--comes home. Their logic, adapted to the meanest capacity, smites
like a hammer. Their statements, often a tissue of mere sophistry and
assumption, appear so plausible, that it is difficult even for the cool
historian to avoid being carried away by them. At a time when party
spirit was running high, and few men stopped to weigh evidence, they must
have been irresistible." ("Jonathan Swift," 1893, p. 81.)

In his "Memoirs relating to that Change" (vol. v., p 384), Swift gives
the following explanation of the foundation of this paper. "Upon the rise
of this ministry the principal persons in power thought it necessary that
some weekly paper should be published, with just reflections upon former
proceedings, and defending the present measures of Her Majesty. This was
begun about the time of the Lord Godolphin's removal, under the name of
'The Examiner.' ... The determination was that I should continue it,
which I did accordingly for about eight months."

Gay remarks in his pamphlet, "The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a
Friend in the Country," 1711: "'The Examiner' is a paper which all men,
who speak without prejudice, allow to be well writ. Though his subject
will admit of no great variety, he is continually placing it on so many
different lights, and endeavouring to inculcate the same thing by so many
beautiful changes of expressions, that men who are concerned in no party,
may read him with pleasure. His way of assuming the question in debate is
extremely artful; and his 'Letter to Crassus' [No. 28] is, I think, a
masterpiece.... I presume I need not tell you that 'The Examiner' carries
much the more sail as 'tis supposed to be writ by the direction, and
under the eye of some great persons who sit at the helm of affairs, and
is consequently looked on as a sort of public notice which way they are
steering us. The reputed author is Dr. S[wif]t, with the assistance
sometimes of Dr. Att[erbur]y and Mr. P[rio]r." With the fall of
Bolingbroke on the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I.,
"The Examiner" collapsed. [T.S.]

THE EXAMINER.