206 



NOTES AND QUEmES. [2n.> s. n^ 115., mah. 13. '58. 



back on her, " forthwitU tumbles back again head- 

 long into Hell; " and Pluto carries away Proser- 

 pine " in his Coach." — Quadrigis, &c. &c. 



The following are, I suppose, misprints : p. 267. 

 line 21, " of" for so; p. 268. line 13, " affected" 

 for effected ; p. 342, line 7, " These " for 2%e. 



Mr. Singer, I think, only mentions one edition 

 of Sir A. Gorges' translation, that of 1619 ; Dr. 

 Shaw mentions another printed in 1680. It would 

 be worth while to refer to the last, as it possibly 

 may be more correct. 



As an instance of the advantage of comparing 

 Bacon with Bacon, I may refer to " The Ancient 

 Fable of Cupid," which is given in a greatly en- 

 larged, though not complete form, in his De 

 Principiis, " an unfinished, posthumous piece, 

 published by Gruter among the Scripta ; " and 

 which ought to be given in any complete edition 

 of thff Wisdom of the Ancients. It may be found 

 in Shaw, vol. iii. p. 581. 



The Latin edition of Bacon's Works which I 

 have referred to is the folio of 1638, 



In my next and concluding Note I shall make 

 some suggestions for a new English edition of 

 Bacon's De Sapientia Veterum ; and some remarks 

 on the Philosophy of Mythology, Eirionnach.^ 



P.S. The " Catalogue of Bacon's Library " I 

 queried about recently turns out on inquiry to 

 be, not Lord Bacon's, but that of Thomas Sclater 

 Bacon, Esq., sold in 1756-7, 



SWIFTIANA. 



Sir Richard Steele and Dean Swift. — I wish I 

 could answer, or that anybody could and would 

 answer, the questions {ante, p. 27.) of M. S., as to 

 who was the author of Essays, ^c, hij the Author 

 of the " Tale of a Tub.'' The squibbing and pam- 

 phleteering of that day is rarely noticed even by 

 our biographers or bibliographers : although a 

 knowledge of it, and of its parentage, is absolutely 

 required to enable us to understand the persoiial 

 and political relations of the men of that time. 

 For example, we know that Swift and Steele were 

 friends and literary associates up to 1713, and 

 from that time to the day of Steele's death they 

 were enemies. Swift, indeed, rarely mentioned 

 Steele but with bitterness. How is this to be ex- 

 plained ? Swift, we know, left the Whigs and 

 joined the Tories ; but that separated him equally 

 from Addison as from Steele, and yet Addison 

 and Swift were ever friends. There may have 

 been a coolness — a drawing apart — about 1713- 

 1714 when the quai'rel raged between Swift and 

 Steele ; but nothing more, as Swift himself has re- 

 corded. Swift says Steele attacked him in The 

 Guardian ; but the attack amounts to so little that 

 they might have shaken hands in half an hour. 

 Swift indeed asserts that he had called him an in- 



fidel ; but, so far as The Guardian is concerned, 

 this is mere exaggeration, and disproved by The 

 Guardian itself. It is obvious that there must 

 have been more serious and more lasting grounds 

 of quarrel than we are aware of, and it is my 

 opinion that these mutual criminations and recri- 

 minations went on pei'severlngly for some time. I 

 have always been of opinion that the pamphlet 

 referred to by M. S, was written by Steele. 

 There are charges in it which no other man would 

 have thought worth marshalling against Swift. 

 Thus in the Dedication the writer, in the charac- 

 ter of Swift, proceeds to justify himself from "two 

 pretended crimes " which had been, he says, urged 

 against him (p. vll.) : 



" The first is, the breach of friendship with my old ac- 

 quaintance and bottle-companion, Dick Steele ; and that 

 1 have pursued him with a violence inconsistent with the 

 character of a friend, and unworthy that of a Clergyman 

 and Christian." 



Now I cannot believe that any politician of that 

 day and hour would have thought this personal 

 quarrel worth blazoning amongst the offences — the 

 crimes — of the Dean, except Dick Steele himself. 

 Then, again, there was one subject on which 

 Steele was unusually earnest and emphatic, and 

 wrote and laboured with fanatical zeal : this was 

 the demolition of Dunkirk: and Dunkirk furnishes 

 a ground of attack, 



" As for the demolishing of Dunkirk, I have done all I 

 could to prevent it. I have ridicul'd the importance of it, 

 but it won't do ; the clamour still continues, and I fear it 

 must be demolish'd at last." (p. xiii.) 



So begins the attack, and so it ends. Thus, in the 

 Essay on Friendship, Swift is assumed to write : 



" The name of Friend in such cases is of signal service, 

 and here it is only that Friendship, or the pretence of it, is 

 valuable. A man who bulieves j'ou his friend is quite un- 

 guarded, and never suspects an attack from your quarter ; 

 hi<5 bosom is open to you ; and when he finds himself 

 touched, it's odd but you are call'd into the consultation. 

 You wound him as you please, and suffer him only to 

 apply such remedies as you think advisable. After this 

 manner I acted with Mr. Steele (which is the second in- 

 stance I promis'd). And tho' at last he has discovered 

 me to be his enemy, yet I led him into so many steps of 

 ruin, whilst he was mj' friend, that it's now impossible 

 for him to extricate himself. My reputation now rises 

 superior to his, and is quite of a different nature: so that 

 the name of friend is of no further use, and I can trample 

 on him with a better grace as a declared enemy." 



In this style the Dean's treatment of Steele oc- 

 cupies four or five pages. Again, his conduct to 

 Steele is brought forward (p. 54.), and there we 

 have another Dunkirk charge. 



While on this subject, I would submit for con- 

 sideration whether Steele did not write Dr. 



S '« real Diary, Burleigh, 1715. It contains 



like allusions to Swift's quarrel, and a description 

 of Steele's demerits much more in the style of 

 Steele than of Swift. Thus — 



" Wrote Friday's bitter Examiner against St e. Ila ! 



