Swift's arrogance in these days of his power was that of a despot. He was doing great things for ministers, and took care that they should know it. He was proud of his self-assertion, proud of being rude. Great men, and great ladies too, who wished for his acquaintance, had to make the first advances. He caused Lady Burlington to burst into tears by rudely ordering her to sing. 'She should sing or he would make her.' 'I was at court and church to-day,' he tells Stella, 'I generally am acquainted with about thirty in the drawing-room, and am so proud I make all the lords come up to me.' On one occasion he sent the Lord Treasurer into the House of Commons to call out the principal Secretary of State in order to say that he would not dine with him if he intended to dine late. He relates, too, how he warned St. John not to appear cold to him, for he would not be treated like a school-boy, and if he heard or saw anything to his disadvantage to let him know in plain words, and not to put him in pain by the change of his behaviour, for it was what he would hardly bear from a crowned head. 'If we let these great ministers pretend too much,' he says, 'there will be no governing them.' And in a letter to Pope he makes the following confession: 'All my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and fortune that I might be treated like a lord ... whether right or wrong it is no great matter; and so the reputation of great learning does the work of a blue ribbon, and of a coach and six horses.' It would be out of place in this volume to dwell on Swift's feats as a political writer; for us the most interesting fact connected with the years 1710-14 is that during that eventful period of Swift's life, in which he was hobnobbing with Ministers of State and doing them infinite service by his pen, he was writing at odd moments his inimitable _Journal to Stella_, and gaining the love which ended so tragically, of Hester Vanhomrigh. This strange chapter in Swift's life is closely bound up with his literary history, and must therefore be briefly noticed.