of Vanessa anywhere visible, though the brief mention of her name shows that the second story, which was to be so fatally and painfully mingled with the first, had already begun.
The three years of Swift’s stay in England were the climax of his life. They raised him higher than ever a simple parson had been raised before, and made of him (or so, at least, he believed) a power in the state. It has been doubted whether he was really so highly trusted, so much built upon, as he thought. The great lords who delighted in Swift’s talk, and called him Jonathan, did not, perhaps, follow his advice and accept his guidance, as he supposed. He says, jestingly,--yet half, perhaps, with an uneasy meaning,--that everything that was said between himself and Harley as they traveled sociably in my Lord Treasurer’s coach to Windsor, might have been told at Charing Cross; but this was a rare admission, and generally he was very full of the schemes of the ministers and their consultations, and his own important share in them. He seems to have constituted himself the patron of everybody he knew, really providing for a considerable number, and largely undertaking for others, though it was long before he got anything for himself. The following anecdote gives an unpleasant view from outside of his demeanor and habits. It is from Bishop Kennett’s diary during the year 1713, the last of Swift’s importance:
Swift came into the coffee-room, and had a bow from everybody save me. When I came to the antechamber to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business, and acted as minister of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother the Duke of Ormond to get a chaplain’s place established in the garrison of Hull for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighborhood, who had lately been in jail and published sermons to pay fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my Lord Treasurer that according to his position he should obtain a salary of £200 per annum as minister of the English Church in Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told him aloud he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant, to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book, and wrote down several things as _memoranda_ to do for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and, telling them the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said, “It goes too fast.” “How can I help it,” says the Doctor, “if the courtiers give me a watch that won’t go right?” Then he instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which, he said, he must have them all subscribe. “For,” says he, “the author shall not begin to print it till I have a thousand guineas for him.” Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him; both went off just before prayers.