instead of intending the publick weal, have their hearts wholly set upon ways and means, how to get or to keep employments. But to speak more at large, how has this spirit of faction mingled itself with the mass of the people, changed their nature and manners, and the very genius of the nation! broke all the laws of charity, neighbourhood, alliance, and hospitality; destroyed all ties of friendship, and divided families against themselves! and no wonder it should be so, when in order to find out the character of a person, instead of inquiring whether he be a man of virtue, honour, piety, wit, good sense, or learning; the modern question is only, whether he be a whig or a tory; under which terms, all good, and ill qualities are included.

Now, because it is a point of difficulty to choose an exact middle between two ill extremes, it may be worth inquiring in the present case, which of these a wise and good man would rather seem to avoid taking therefore their own good and ill characters, with due abatements and allowances for partiality and passion, I should think, that in order to preserve the constitution entire in church and state, whoever has a true value for both, would be sure to avoid the extremes of whig, for the sake of the former; and the extremes of tory, on account of the latter.

I have now said all that I could think convenient, upon so nice a subject, and find I have the ambition common with other reasoners, to wish at least that both parties may think me in the right; which would be of some use to those who have any virtue left, but are blindly drawn into the extravagancies of either, upon false representations, to serve the ambition or malice of designing men, without any prospect of their own. But if that is not to be

hoped for, my next wish should be, that both might think me in the wrong: which I would understand as an ample justification of myself, and a sure ground to believe, that I have proceeded at least with impartiality, and perhaps with truth.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS *.

THIS book, by some errours and neglects in the style, seems not to have received the author's last correction f. It is written with some vehemence, very pardonable in one who had been an observer and a sufferer, in England, under that diabolical fanatick sect, which then destroyed church and state. But by comparing, in my memory, what I have read in other histories, he neither aggravates nor falsifies any facts. His partiality appears chiefly in setting the actions of Calvinists in the strongest light, without equally dwelling on those of the other side; which, however, to say the truth, was not his proper business. And yet he might have spent some more words on the inhuman massacre of Paris, and other parts of France, which no provocation (and yet the king had the greatest possible) could excuse, or much extenuate. The author, according to the current opinion of the age he lived in, had too high notions of regal power; led by the

Written by the Dean in the beginning of the book, on one of the blank leaves. N.

common mistake of the term Supreme Magistrate, and not rightly distinguishing between the legislature and administration: into which mistake the clergy fell or continued, in the reign of Charles II. as I have shown and explained in a treatise, etc.

March 6, 1727-8.

J. SWIFT.

DECREE

FOR CONCLUDING THE TREATY BETWEEN

DR. SWIFT AND MRS. LONG, 1709.

WHEREAS it hath been signified to us, that there is now a treaty of acquaintance on foot, between Dr. Swift, of Leicester fields, of the one part, and Mrs. Long*, of Albemarle street, on the other part: And whereas the said Dr. Swift, upon the score of his merit and extraordinary qualities, doth claim the sole and undoubted right, that all

*This lady, sister to sir James Long, figured high in the fashionable world; and is distinguished among those of the first quality in "The British Court, a poem, 1707." Dr. Swift's acquaintance with her was but of short duration, having commenced. through the Vanhomrigh family, in 1709: and we find, in the Journal to Stella, Sept. 13, 1710, that she had then "broke up house, and gone into the country;" owing, as appears Sept. 16, to pecuniary distresses. She retired to Lynn, in Norfolk, where she maintained a correspondence with Dr. Swift; who acknowledges the receipt of letters from her, Oct. 30, Nov. 12, and Dec. 10, 1710. The last she wrote to him, dated Nov. 18, 1711, describing her situation in the country, where she assumed the name of Smyth, is printed in vol. XV. p. 198. She died Dec. 22, 1711: and is lamented, with marks of the truest friendship, by Dr. Swift, who has exhibited some traits of her character, in the Journal of Dec. 25. See also a letter by the Dean to a friend, occasioned by her death, vol. XV. P. 203. N.