interred[1], by order from the court — a mercy no nation but ours would have conferred upon a spy, a a traitor, and an assassin[2]!
Is it not obvious to all England, what had been our distress, in the confusion wherein so long a run of mismanagement has plunged us, if Heaven had permitted the knife of a barbarous foreigner to have robbed us of a minister, whose conduct, wise, stedfast, vigorous, extricates our affairs, and embroils the enemy[3]? Does not the flourishing church of England owe him all things for her deliverance from presbytery and atheism; a miracle no less seasonable, than when she was assaulted by all the force of
- ↑ He died in the fifty-second year of his age.
- ↑ In the "Comitia Philologica Academiæ Oxoniensis, 1713," is a prose oration by H. Muxloe, A. B., under the title of "Furor Guiscardinus," where the circumstances of this horrid transaction are properly enlarged upon.
- ↑ This great minister was, in the following year, in danger of losing his life by another scene of treachery; which is mentioned by Dr. Swift, in his Journal to Stella, Nov. 15, 1712.
liberally. The above passage, in particular, he has taken upon him to censure; and asserts, that Guiscard desired Mr. Busiere to send for a priest; who told him, "he was acquainted with none; his business was only to dress him: and if he wanted a priest, he must apply himself to others." It is amusing to observe with what dignity our author maintained his just superiority over the swarm of scribblers who continually infested him. They were treated by him, as they deserved, with the most sovereign contempt. Of the writer of the "Political State," he say's, "One Boyer, a French dog, has abused me in a pamphlet ["An Account of the State and Progress of the Present Negotiation of Peace, &c.]; and I have got him in a messenger's hands; the secretary promises me to swinge him. Lord treasurer told me last night that he had the honour to be abused with me in a pamphlet. I must make that rogue an example, for a warning to others." Journal to Stella, Oct. 16, 1711.
