taking the least notice of any one, walked out of the coffee-house. His whimsical humor, and love of making the spectators stare, remained a characteristic of Swift all his life. These beginnings of social life were, however, past, and no one was better known or more warmly welcomed, when he appeared with his wig new curled, and his azure eyes aglow, than the Irish parson, waiting upon Providence and the Whigs, whose political pamphlets, and papers in the “Tatler,” and malicious practical joking with poor Partridge, the astrologer, made him, at each appearance, a more notable figure to all the lookers-on. His eyes must have been on fire under those expressive brows when he came to London in 1710, resolved this time to be put off by Whig blandishments no longer, but to try what the other side would do. The other side received him with open arms, and the most instant appreciation of what he was worth to them and what he could do. Harley was not great in any sense of the word, but if he had shown as much insight in the conduct of public affairs as he did in his perception of the workmen best adapted to his purpose, in the struggle upon which he had entered, he would have been the most successful of ministers. He told Swift that his colleagues and himself had been afraid of none but him in the ranks of their enemies, and that they had resolved to have him. And in proof that they were ready to do anything to secure his services, they pushed on and decided as soon as might be his suit for the church, which had hung in the balance so long, was as good as granted, now as far off as ever. It was settled at once, to Swift’s great triumph. And to crown all, the new minister, the greatest man in England, called him Jonathan!--of all wonderful things, what could be more wonderful than that this great wit, this powerful and pitiless satirist, this ambitious man, should be altogether overcome with pleasure when Harley called him by his Christian name! Was it mere servility, vanity, the flattered weakness of a hanger-on in a great man’s familiarity, as everybody says? It is hard to believe this, though it is taken for granted on all sides. Swift seems, at all events, to have had a real affection for the shifty minister, who received him in so different a fashion from that of his former masters. He flung himself into all the backstair intrigues, and collogued with Abigail Masham, and took his share in every plot. When Harley was stabbed, Swift felt for him all the anxiety of a brother. He threw himself into the “Examiner,” the new Tory organ, with fervor and enthusiasm, and expounded the principles of his party and set their plans before the public with a force and clearness which nobody but he, his patrons declared, possessed. The two statesmen, Harley and Bolingbroke, who were so little like each other, so ill calculated to draw together, were alike in this: that neither could be flattering enough or kind enough to the great