SIR,

LETTER XIV.

To Mr. A D DISO N.

May 13, 1713.

I WAS told yesterday, by feveral perfons, that Mr. Steele had reflected upon me in his Guardian; which I could hardly believe, until, fending for the paper of the day, I found he had, in several parts of it, infinuated with the utmoft malice, that I was author of the Examiner; and abufed me in the groffeft manner he could poffibly invent, and fet his name to what he had written. Now, Sir, if I am not author of the Examiner, how will Mr. Steele be able to defend himself from the imputation of the highest degree of baseness, ingratitude, and injuftice? Is he fo ignorant of my temper, and of my ftyle? Has he never heard that the author of the Examiner (to whom I am altogether a ftranger *) did, a month or two ago, vindicate me from having any concern in it? Should not Mr. Steele have first expoftulated with me, as a

The reader will pleafe to recollect, that Dr. Swift never writ any Examiners after the 7th of June 1711. He took up that paper at No XIII. and laid it down at No XLIV.

friend?

friend? Have I deferved this ufage from Mr. Steele, who knows very well that my Lord Treasurer has kept him in his employment upon my intreaty and interceffion? My Lord Chancellor and Lord Bolingbroke will be witneffes, how I was reproached by my Lord Treasurer, upon the ill returns Mr. Steele made to his Lordship's indulgence, &c.

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LETTER XV.

From Mr. STEELE to Dr. SWIFT.

SIR,

MR

May 19, 1713.

R. ADDISON fhewed me your letter, wherein you mention me. They laugh at you, if they make you believe your interpofition has kept me thus long in my office. If you have spoken in my behalf at any time, I am glad I have always treated you with refpect; though I believe you an accomplice of the Examiner's. In the letter you are angry at, you fee I have no reafon for being so merciful to him, but out of regard to the imputation you lie under. You do not in direct terms fay you are not concerned with him;

but

but make it an argument of your innocence that the Examiner has declared you have nothing to do with him. I believe I could prevail upon the Guardian to say there was a mistake in putting my name in his paper: But the English would laugh at us, fhould we argue in fo Irish a manner. I am heartily glad of your being made Dean of St. Patrick's. I am,

SIR,

Your moft obedient

Humble fervant,

RICHARD STEELE.

SIR,

LETTER XVI.

To Mr. STEELE.

+ I may probably know better, when they are difpofed

The cafe was

thus:

It has unluckily happened that two or three lines have been torn by accident from the beginning of this letter; and, by the fame accident, two or three lines are miffing towards the latter part, which were written on the back part of the paper which was torn off. But what remains of this letter

VOL. XVI.

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will?

thus I did with the utmost application, and defiring to lay all my credit upon it, defire Mr. Harley (as he then was called) to fhew you mercy. He faid he would, and wholly upon my account: That he would appoint you a day to fee him: That he would not expect you should quit any friend or principle. Some days after, he told me he had appointed you a day, and you had not kept it; upon which he reproached me, as engaging for more than I could anfwer; and advifed me to more caution another time. I told him, and defired my Lord Chancellor * and Lord Bolingbroke to be witneffes, that I would never fpeak for or against you as long as I lived; only I would, and that it was still my opinion, you should have mercy till you gave further provocations. This is the history of what you think fit to call, in the spirit of infulting," their laughing at me:" And you may do it fecurely; for, by the moft inhuman dealings, you have wholly put it out of my power, as à Chriftian, to do you the leaft ill office. Next I defire to

will, I prefume, be very fatisfactory to the intelligent reader, upon many accounts, and especially becaufe a light into this affair will justify the prodigious feverity of Dr. Swift's pen against Mr. Steele, in his Public Spirit of the Whigs.

Lord Harcourt.

know,

know, whether the greatest services ever done by one man to another, may not have the fame turn as properly applied to them? And, once more, fuppofe they did laugh at me, I ask whether my inclinations to ferve you merit to be rewarded by the vileft treatment, whether they fucceeded or no? If your interpretation were true, I was laughed at only for your fake; which, I think, is going pretty far to serve a friend. As to the letter I complain of, I appeal to your moft partial friends, whether you ought not either to have asked, or written to me, or defired to have been informed by a third hand, whether I were any way concerned in writing the Examiner? And, if I had fhuffled, or anfwered indirectly, or affirmed it, or faid I would not give you fatisfaction; you might then have wrecked your revenge with fome colour of juftice. I have feveral times affured Mr. Addison, and fifty others, that I had not the least hand in writing any of thofe Papers; and that I had never exchanged one fyllable with the fuppofed author in my life, that I can remember, nor even feen him above twice, and that in mixt company, in a place where he came to pay his attendance. One thing more I muft obferve

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