He is in politics, too, which ran at high tide all through Anne’s time and the previous reign; you will read no history or biography stretching into that period but you may be confounded (at least I am) with talk of Whigs and Tories; and of what Somers did, and of what Harley did, and of what Ormond might do; and it is worth sparing a few moments to say something of the great parties. In a large way Whiggism represented progress and the new impulses which had come in with William III., and Toryism represented what we call conservatism. Thus, in _Old Mortality_, young Henry Morton is the Whig, and her ladyship of Tillietudlem is a starched embodiment of Toryism. Those who favored the Stuart family, and made a martyr of Charles I.--those who leaned to Romanism and rituals, or faith in tradition, were, in general, Tories; and those who brought over William of Orange, or who were dissenters or freethinkers, were apt to be Whigs. So the scars which came of sword-cuts by Cromwellian soldiers were apt to mark an excellent Tory; and the cropped ears of Puritans, that told of the savageness of Prince Rupert’s dragoons, were pretty sure to brand a man a Whig for life. But these distinctions were not steady and constant; thus, the elegant and fastidious Sir William Temple was a Whig; and old Dryden, clinking mugs with good fellows at Will’s coffee-house, was a Tory. Again, the courtly and quiet Mr. Addison, with his De Coverley reverences, was a good Whig; and Pope, with his _Essay on Man_, and fellowship with freethinkers, was Toryish. Swift began with being a Whig, to which side his slapdash wilfulness, his fellowship with Temple, and his scorn of tradition drew him; but he ended with veering over to the Tory ranks, where his hate of Presbyterianism and his eager thrusts at canting radicals gave him credit and vogue. Addison and others counted him a turncoat, and grew cold to him; for party hates were most hot in those days; Swift himself says--the politicians wrangle like cats. He was tired, too, of waiting on Whig promises; perhaps he had larger hope of preferment with the Tories; Steele alleged this with bitterness; and there can be no doubt that Swift had an eye on preferment. Why not? Can he, so alert in mind, so loving of dignity, so conscious of power, see Mr. Addison coming to place as Secretary of State, and Steele with his fat commissions, without a tingling and irritating sense of dissatisfaction? Can he see good, amiable, pious dunces getting planted year after year in fat bishoprics, without a torturing remembrance of that poor little parish of Laracor, with a following so feeble that he is fain to open service some days (his factotum being the only auditor) with--“My dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places----”