his success. Harley had won not only the gratitude but the permanent devotion of his new friend. Swift, though seeing plainly the minister's faults, always speaks of him hereafter with the strongest personal affection.
Swift began at once by political squibs, attacking his enemy Godolphin in ‘Sid Hamet's Rod,’ which had a great success, and producing in December what he rightly calls ‘a damned libellous pamphlet’ against the hated Wharton, of which two thousand copies were sold in two days (Journal, 15 Oct. 1710, and 1 Jan. 1710–1). He was already employed upon more important work. The ‘Examiner’ had been started as a weekly paper to support the tories, and had been for a time answered by Addison in a short-lived ‘Whig Examiner.’ Swift now took over the ‘Examiner,’ of which the original authors were tired, and wrote the numbers from 2 Nov. 1710 to 14 June 1711. Their success was unprecedented. With an air of downright common-sense and vigorous insistence upon the main points, Swift defends the ministerial policy. He expresses the general weariness of the war, which was now, he argued, being carried on for the benefit of Marlborough, the ‘monied men,’ and our Dutch allies; he appeals to the interests of the church and the landed men, and denounces some of his hated opponents. He often took credit for sparing Marlborough (Journal, 7 Jan., 12 Jan., and 18 Feb. 1710–1711), whom he heartily disliked, but still took to be necessary. The ‘sparing’ is not very evident now, but at the time Swift and his patron, Harley, appeared as too moderate to some of their own side. The ministry, as Swift says (4 March 1710–11), stood ‘like an isthmus’ between whigs and violent tories. Swift endeavoured to restrain the excess of zeal, and was very nervous at reports of Harley's ill-health. When, on 8 March 1711, Harley was stabbed by Guiscard, Swift was thrown into an agony of fear. He afterwards preserved Guiscard's knife as a memorial (Deane Swift, p. 163; Scott, i. 196 n.; Nichols, Lit. Illustr. v. 379). Swift took lodgings at Chelsea on 26 April to have the benefit of a walk to London. He often went to Windsor in the summer with ministers, and describes his journeys in his imitation of Horace (6th satire of 2nd book). He saw the queen occasionally, but Harley, it seems, never fulfilled his promise of presenting him formally at court. Prior's secret mission to Paris in the summer gave occasion for one of Swift's characteristic ‘bites.’ When it was made known by an accident, he wrote a mock account, supposed to come from a French valet, which is an amusing instance of his power of mystification. The serious purpose of the pamphlet was apparently to test the public feeling as to the peace negotiations. This gave the occasion for Swift's most important work at this time. In concert with St. John he prepared, during the summer, his pamphlet upon the ‘Conduct of the Allies.’ The whigs were to make a great effort at the meeting of parliament. They made an alliance with Nottingham [see Finch, Daniel, second Earl of Nottingham] by agreeing to accept the Occasional Conformity Bill; and the queen was thought to be drawn towards them by the influence of the Duchess of Somerset. Swift, as usual, took a gloomy view of political prospects. His pamphlet appeared on 27 Nov., and was greedily bought. It was a powerful defence of the thesis assumed in the ‘Examiner,’ that the war had been protracted against our true interests from corrupt motives, and solely to benefit our allies. When a vote hostile to the ministry was passed in the House of Lords, Swift was in despair and begged St. John to get him a secretaryship abroad, to which he might retreat if the ministry fell (Journal, 7 Dec. 1711). He recommended, however, strong measures all the more earnestly. On 13 Dec. he was alarmed by hearing that the chief justice (Parker) had threatened the printer of the ‘Conduct of the Allies,’ which he would not have had the impudence to do had he not anticipated a change. Swift consoled himself by writing the ‘Windsor Prophecy,’ a squib in which he charged the Duchess of Somerset with having red hair and having been concerned in the murder of her second husband [see under Seymour, Charles, sixth Duke of Somerset]. It was privately printed, and a dozen copies given to each of his friends at the Brothers' Club. Mrs. Masham persuaded him not to publish it; but it was probably shown to the queen, and would not conciliate her or her favourite (Journal, 23, 26, and 27 Dec. 1711). His anxiety was at last relieved by the creation of the twelve peers and the dismissal of Marlborough from all his offices at the end of the year.
The tories were now triumphant; but success brought disunion. The October Club, composed of the more violent tories, complained that the ministry had not gone far enough. Swift endeavoured to pacify them by a ‘twopenny pamphlet’ of advice, and complains (ib. 28 Jan. 1711–12) that, though ‘finely written,’ it did not sell. The jealousies between Harley (now Lord Oxford) and St. John were becoming serious. Swift had noticed a discord soon after Guiscard's attempt,
