lliver's Travels," a
production so new and strange, that it filled the reader with a mingled
emotion of merriment and amazement. It was received with such avidity,
that the price of the first edition was raised before the second
could be made; it was read by the high and the low, the learned and
illiterate. Criticism was for a while lost in wonder; no rules of
judgment were applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and
regularity. But when distinctions came to be made, the part which gave
the least pleasure was that which describes the Flying Island, and that
which gave most disgust must be the history of Houyhnhnms.

While Swift was enjoying the reputation of his new work, the news of the
king's death arrived, and he kissed the hands of the new king and queen
three days after their accession. By the queen, when she was princess,
he had been treated with some distinction, and was well received by her
in her exaltation; but whether she gave hopes which she never took care
to satisfy, or he formed expectations which she never meant to raise,
the event was that he always afterwards thought on her with malevolence,
and particularly charged her with breaking her promise of some medals
which she engaged to send him. I know not whether she had not, in her
turn, some reason for complaint. A letter was sent her, not so much
entreating, as requiring her patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious
Irishwoman, who was then begging subscriptions for her Poems. To this
letter was subscribed the name of Swift, and it has all the appearance
of his diction and sentiments; but it was not written in his hand, and
had some little improprieties. When he was charged with this letter,
he laid hold of the inaccuracies, and urged the improbability of the
accusation, but never denied it: he shuffles between cowardice and
veracity, and talks big when he says nothing. He seems desirous enough
of recommencing courtier, and endeavoured to gain the kindness of Mrs.
Howard, remembering what Mrs. Masham had performed in former times; but
his flatteries were, like those of other wits, unsuccessful; the lady
either wanted power, or had no ambition of poetical immortality. He was
seized not long afterwards by a fit of giddiness, and again heard of the
sickness and danger of Mrs. Johnson. He then left the house of Pope,
as it seems, with very little ceremony, finding "that two sick friends
cannot live together;" and did not write to him till he found h