Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/183

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DR. SWIFT.
171

to leave off, being hurried away to Windsor by my lord treasurer, from whence I returned but last night. His lordship gave me a paper, which he said he had promised me. I put it in my pocket, thinking it was about something else we had been talking over; and I never looked into it until just now, when I find it to be my lord primate's letter to his lordship, with an enclosed one from the bishops. With submission, I take it to be dry enough, although I shall not tell his lordship so. They say they are informed his lordship had a great part in, &c. I think they should either have told who it was informed them so, since it was a person commissioned by themselves; or, at least, have said they were assured. And as for those words, a great part, I know nobody else had any, except the queen herself. I cannot tell whether my lord has writ an answer, having said nothing to him of it since he gave me the letters; nor shall I desire to see it.

As to the convocation, I remember both my lord treasurer and Mr. St. John spoke to me about the matter, and were of the same opinion with your grace, that it was wholly in the queen's choice. I excused giving my opinion, being wholly uninformed; and I have heard nothing of it since.

My lord keeper gave me yesterday a bundle of Irish votes at Windsor, and we talked a good deal about the quarrel between the lords and commons: I said the fault lay in not dissolving the parliament; which I had mentioned to the duke of Ormond, and often to some of those who were thought to have most credit with him. But they seemed to believe, as I did, that any Irish parliament would yield to

any