Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/89

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DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.
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this for the church of England; and will our author, or any of the whiggish side, persuade us he can so far recede from his former principles, to take party against that very church he has helped to preserve? to join in opposition to her, with her bitterest foes, when he is already as great and rich as a subject ought to be?

No! no! Such restless spirits as this writer, who, in the words of Mr. Dryden, "fire that world which they were sent by preaching to warm;" those Phaëtons of mankind," abuse the reputation of the greatest persons, and do themselves honour at the expense of others, who, being equally ignorant of many things, yet pretend to determine of all the affairs of war and the cabinet; to enflame the people, abuse the ministry, and the queen through them; to trouble the waters, in hopes crowns and mitres may be found floating on the surface, and ready to fall to the share of the boldest hand.

We shall next consider the "scandalous manner of treatment" the duke of Marlborough, as this writer tells us, "has met with from the Examiner and his party;" for, he is sensible, the usage he gave him was "not wholly from himself." How can he be sensible of that? For to this day it does not appear who the Examiner is, nor that he had instructions to talk of Crassus, Catiline, or Anthony. That pen still remains concealed; neither rewards nor presents have been given to any, that we can suppose was author of those papers. Whoever he were, he

    court of the expedition against Brest [in 1694], more with a design of being revenged on William, than with a view to serve France at the expense of England.

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