hen received him again.
Soon afterwards he ordered him and the rest of his servants into his
presence, without telling his intentions, and bade them take notice
that their fellow-servant was no longer Robert the butler, but that his
integrity had made him Mr. Blakeney, verger of St. Patrick's, an officer
whose income was between thirty and forty pounds a year; yet he still
continued for some years to serve his old master as his butler.

Swift was known from this time by the appellation of The Dean. He was
honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of
Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and
duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth
or higher station. He was from this important year the oracle of the
traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and
courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was
necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which
way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of the
nation's gratitude to the Drapier.

The benefit was indeed great; he had rescued Ireland from a very
oppressive and predatory invasion, and the popularity which he had
gained he was diligent to keep, by appearing forward and zealous on
every occasion where the public interest was supposed to be involved.
Nor did he much scruple to boast his influence; for when, upon some
attempts to regulate the coin, Archbishop Boulter, then one of the
justices, accused him of exasperating the people, he exculpated himself
by saying, "If I had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to
pieces." But the pleasure of popularity was soon interrupted by domestic
misery. Mrs. Johnson, whose conversation was to him the great softener
of the ills of life, began in the year of the Drapier's triumph to
decline, and two years afterwards was so wasted with sickness that her
recovery was considered as hopeless. Swift was then in England, and had
been invited by Lord Bolingbroke to pass the winter with him in France;
but this call of calamity hastened him to Ireland, where perhaps his
presence contributed to restore her to imperfect and tottering health.
He was now so much at ease, that (1727) he returned to England, where
he collected three volumes of Miscellanies in conjunction with Pope, who
prefixed a querulous and apologetical Preface.

This important year sent likewise into the world "Gu