Rathbeggin.

VARIOUS PAMPHLETS.--His _Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity_,
Dr. Johnson calls "a very happy and judicious irony." In 1710 he wrote a
paper, at the request of the Irish primate, petitioning the queen to remit
the first-fruits and twentieth parts to the Irish clergy. In 1712, ten
days before the meeting of parliament, he published his _Conduct of the
Allies_, which, exposing the greed of Marlborough, persuaded the nation to
make peace. A supplement to this is found in _Reflections on the Barrier
Treaty_, in which he shows how little English interests had been consulted
in that negotiation.

His pamphlet on _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_, in answer to Steele's
_Crisis_, was so terrible a bomb-shell thrown into the camp of his former
friends, and so insulting to the Scotch, that L300 were offered by the
queen, at the instance of the Scotch lords, for the discovery of the
author; but without success.

At last his versatile and powerful pen obtained some measure of reward: in
1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, with a stipend of L700
per annum. This was his greatest and last preferment.

On the accession of George I., in the following year, he paid his court,
but was received with something more than coldness. He withdrew to his
deanery in Dublin, and, in the words of Johnson, "commenced Irishman for
life, and was to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country
where he considered himself as in a state of exile." After some
misunderstanding between himself and his Irish fellow-citizens, he
espoused their cause so warmly that he became the most popular man in
Ireland. In 1721 he could write to Pope, "I neither know the names nor the
number of the family which now reigneth, further than the prayer-book
informeth me." His letters, signed _M. B. Drapier_, on Irish manufactures,
and especially those in opposition to Wood's monopoly of copper coinage,
in 1724, wrought upon the people, producing such a spirit of resistance
that the project of a debased coinage failed; and so influential did Swift
become, that he was able to say to the Archbishop of Dublin, "Had I raised
my finger, the mob would have torn you to pieces." This popularity was
increased by the fact that a reward of L300 was offered by Lord Carteret
and the privy council for the discovery of the authorship of the fourth
letter; but although it was commonly known that Swift was the author,
proof could not be obt