had a temper and a spirit which made him intolerant of injustice and oppression. That fierce indignation described by himself, and of which such store was always laid up in his heart, was roused to its highest point of heat by the sight of the miseries of the Irish people and of the frequent acts of neglect and injustice by which their misery was deepened. He felt the most sincere resentment at the arbitrary manner in which the Government in London were dealing with Ireland in the matter of Wood's patent and Wood's copper coin. Swift, of course, knew well by what influence the patent had been obtained, and he knew that when obtained it had been simply thrust upon the Irish authorities, Parliament, and people without any previous sanction or knowledge on their part. Very likely he was also convinced, or had convinced himself, that the patent and the new coin would be injurious to the revenues and the trade of the country. Certainly, if he was not convinced of this, he gave to all his diatribes against Wood, Wood's patent, and Wood's halfpence the tones of profoundest conviction. He assumed the character of a draper for the moment--why he chose to spell draper "drapier" nobody knew--and he certainly succeeded in putting on all the semblance of an honest trader driven to homely and robust indignation by an impudent proposal to injure the business of himself and his neighbors. In England, he says, "the halfpence and farthings pass for very little more than they are worth, and if you should beat them to pieces and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose much above a penny in a shilling." But he goes on to say that Mr. Wood, whom he describes as "a mean, ordinary man, a hardware dealer"--Wood was, as we have already seen, a large owner of iron and copper mines and works, but that was all one to Dean Swift--"made his halfpence of such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would hardly give you {245} above a penny of good money for a shilling of his; so that this sum of one hundred and eight thousand pounds in good gold and silver may be given for trash that will not be worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value." Nor is even this the worst, he contends, "for Mr. Wood, when he pleases, may by stealth send over another hundred and eight thousand pounds and buy all our goods for eleven parts in twelve under the value." "For example," says Swift, "if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings apiece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the payment in Wood's coin, he really receives only the value of five shillings." Of course this is the wildest exaggeration--is, in fact, mere extravagance and absurdity, if regarded as a financial proposition. But Swift understood, as hardly any other man understood, the art of employing exaggeration with such an effect as to make it do the business of unquestionable fact. He was able to make his literary coins pass for