Whether this conjecture be true or not, there is abundant reason to conclude that Swift enriched the original design by the effusions of his surpassing wit, to which he sacrificed the all important considerations of character. It was not long before he gave proofs, that if he were not the sole author of the “Tale of a Tub,” he was fully capable of being so, by his Letter on the “Relaxation of the Sacramental Text,” which he also endeavoured, but vainly, to conceal.[504] But it was at a later period that Swift began that series of attacks upon the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and on their party, in his papers in the “Examiner,” a periodical paper set on foot by himself, Dr. Atterbury, St. John, Prior, Dr. Frend, and other Tory writers, after the administration had passed from the hands of Godolphin and Marlborough into those of Harley and his party. To this powerful production, sustained with an apparent calmness and exactness of statement, which gave indescribable effect to its bitter remarks and searching analyses, the Duchess of Marlborough was indebted for much of her unpopularity, and Harley for a considerable proportion of his influence over the public mind.[505] The portion of the papers for which Swift was solely responsible, are acknowledged to be greatly superior to the subsequent essays. Swift himself prophesied the inferiority. Upon the publication of number forty-four, which was the last he wrote, he intimated to his friends that the rest would be “trash for the future;” and the subsequent papers were, he says, “written by some under-spur leathers in the city, and were designed merely as proper returns to those Grub-street invectives which were thrown out against the (Tory) administration by the authors of the ‘Medley’ and the ‘Englishman,’ and some other abusive detracting papers of the like stamp.” The result fully bore out this prediction; and the “Examiner,” of all the attacks which were made upon the Marlborough party and their friends, the most obnoxious to them, and beneficial to their enemies, soon sank in reputation, and altogether ceased. But its disparaging effects upon those whom it assailed were long experienced; and the party which this celebrated publication attacked, never recovered the popularity and stability which it first undermined. APPENDIX. LETTER FROM MISTRESS WITTEWRONGE, _daughter-in-law of Sir John Wittewronge, Bart. of Rothamsted Park, Herts, to the_ DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, _referring to Mrs. Jennings_. Sir John Wittewronge came to England from Ghent, in consequence of the persecutions of the Protestants in Flanders. One of his family was maid of honour to Queen Anne, probably through the interest of the Duchess, who appears from this letter to have been a friend of the family.