108 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Aug. ]1. 1855. 



about my friend Lewis's story*, which will be told with 

 remarks ... I could do nothing till to-day about 2'Ae 

 Examiner, but the printer came this morning, and I 

 dictated to him what was fit to be said, and then Mr. 

 Lewis came and corrected it as he would have it ; so I 

 was neither at church nor at court." — Swift's Works, 

 vol. ix. p. 234. 



" I have instructed an under-spur leather f to write so 

 that it is taken for mine."- — Ibid., vol. xxiii. p. 61. 



This is in a letter to Mrs. Johnson, dated Oct. 10, 

 1711, so that this must be referred to The Ex- 

 aminer in which he had discontinued to write. On 

 June 22, about a fortnight after he discontinued 

 to write in The Examiner., Swift tells Mrs. 

 Johnson : 



" Yesterday's was a sad Examiner, and last week's was 

 very indifferent, though some little scraps of the old spirit 

 [as if he had given some hints] ; but yesterday's is all 

 trash. It is plain the hand is changed." — Ibid., vol. xxii. 

 p. 264. 



In a letter, July 17, 1711, Swift tells Stella: 



" No, I don't like anything in The Examiner after the 

 45th number, except the first part of the 46th ; all the rest 

 is trash ; and if you like them, especially the 47th, your 

 judgment is spoiled by ill company and want of reading, 

 which I am more sorry for than you think ; and I have 

 spent fourteen years in improving you to little purpose." — 

 Ibid., vol. xxii. p. 284. 



" As for The Examiner, I have heard a whisper, that 

 after that of this day, which tells what this parliament 

 has done, you will hardly find them so good. I prophesy 

 they will be trash for the future : and methinks in this 

 day's Examiner the author talks doubtfully, as if he 

 would write no more. Observe whether the change be 

 discovered in Dublin." — Swift's Letter to Mrs. Johnson, 

 dated London, June 7, 1711. 



His last paper, No. 45., is dated June 7, 1711. 

 (See Swift's Letters, vol. iv. pp. 363, 364. See 

 ibidem, passages about The Examiner, pp. 60. 247. 

 369.) In the same Letters, Sfc, published by Deane 

 Swift, Esq., vol. V. p. 122., there is a very parti- 

 cular account of The Examiner. (See also the 

 note, and pp. 123. 31. 5. 118. 216. 217.) 



Swift, in the passages quoted above, has said 

 enough to justify a suspicion that he was not alto- 

 gether unconcerned in The Examiner, even after 

 June 7, 1711. Steele might innocently enough 

 insinuate a suspicion of this kind, and insist upon 

 a fact that Swift did not in direct terms, in his 

 letter to Addison, say that he was not concerned 

 with The Examiner. The reader for curiosity 

 may turn to his correspondence with Steele on this 

 subject. (Swift's TForAs, vol. xvii. p. 99., &c.) In 

 p. 103. of this volume. Swift expresses himself in 

 the following manner : 



S" I have several times assured Mr. Addison, and fifty 

 ■others, that I had not the least hand in writing any of 

 the papers; and that I had never exchanged one syllable 

 with the supposed author in my life that I can remember, 



~ *«The paper about Lewis is The Examiner, No. 21. 



t This under-spur leather was perhaps the person Swift 

 alludes to (vol. xxii. p. 274.), and calls "a scrub instru- 

 ment of mischief of mine." . 



No. 302,] 



or even seen him above twice, and that in a mixed com- 

 pany, in a place where he came to pay his attendance." — 

 Ut supra, p. 103. 



Swift had just such a dispute with Lord Lans-r 

 down. (See Journal to Stella, March 13 and 27, 

 1711-12.) 



The Examiner. — This paper was esteemed to 

 be the work of several eminent hands ; among 

 which were reckoned Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop 

 Atterbury, Mr. Prior, and others. The general 

 opinion is, that those persons proceeded no farther 

 than the first twelve or thirteen papers ; after 

 which it seems to be agreed that the undertaking 

 was carried on by Dr. Swift, who commenced a 

 regular series of politics with No. 14., Nov. 2, 

 1710; and having completed the main design 

 which first engaged him in the undertaking with 

 No. 45., June 7, 1711, and taken his leave of the 

 town in the last two paragraphs of that number, 

 never wrote any more in it (?). 2'he Examiner 

 indeed still continued to be published, but it sunk 

 immediately into rudeness and ill manners, being 

 written by "some under-spur leathers" in the 

 city, whose scurrility was encouraged (as Dean 

 Swift himself did not scruple to own) by the 

 ministry themselves, who employed this paper to 

 return the- Grub Street invectives thrown out 

 against the administration by the authors of The 

 Medley, The Englishman, and some other abusive 

 detracting papers of the same stamp. (See note on 

 the Scotch edition of Swift's Works, vol. ii. p. 184., 

 1756, 12mo.) 



It is now well known that the persons concerned 

 in The Examiner were, Mrs. Manley, Dr. Swift, 

 Lord Bolingbroke, Mr, Prior, and Mr. Oldisworth. 

 Messrs. Pope and Arbuthnot often laid their 

 hands to the same plough, and some others of their 

 clan. (Vide Egerton's Memoirs of Mrs. Oldjield, 

 p. 46.) 



N.B. — In Swift's WorAs all the numbers of The 

 Examiner are different ; being there one number 

 prior to what they should be. No. 14. is there 

 No, 13., &c. &c. 



pilgrims' eoads. 



(Vol. il., pp. 199. 237. 269. 316. ; Vol. iii., p. 429,) 



An Interesting note by Mr. Albert Way, in 

 Stanley's Historical Memorials of Canterbury, re- 

 minded me of some memoranda which I made a 

 few years ago in reference to a part of the line of 

 that ancient road, which is supposed to have been 

 traversed by the pilgrims in their route from 

 Southampton to Canterbury. The Pilgrims' 

 Lane is well known to the peasantry about 

 Gatton and Merstham. An intelligent man told 

 me he had traced it himself from Eeigate Hill to 



