This is not the power nor is it the kind of criticism that are the elements of the art of the journalist. Perhaps we should be glad that it is not; which is but to say that we are content with things as they exist. It requires a special set of conditions to precipitate a Swift. Happily, if we will have it so, the conditions in which we find ourselves ask for that kind of journalist whose function is amply fulfilled when he has measured the movements of the hour by the somewhat higher standards of the day. The conditions under which Swift lived demanded a journalist of an entirely different calibre; and they got him. They obtained a man who dissolved the petty jealousies of party power in the acid of satire, and who distilled the affected fears for Church and State in the alembic of a statesmanship that establishes a nation's majesty and dignity on the common welfare of its free people. When Swift, at the beginning of the November of 1710, was called in to assist the Tory party by undertaking the work of "The Examiner," he found a condition of things so involved and so unstable, that it required the very nicest appreciation, the most delicate handling, and the boldest of hearts to readjust and re-establish, without fearful consequences. Harley and St. John were safely housed, and, apparently, amply protected by a substantial majority. But majorities are often not the most trustworthy of supports. Apart from the over-confidence which they inspire, and apart from the danger of a too-enthusiastic following, such as found expression in the October Club, there was the danger which might come from the dissatisfaction of the people at large, should their temper be wrongly gauged; and at this juncture it was not easy to gauge. The popularity of Marlborough and his victories, on the one hand, was undoubted. On the other, however, there was the growing opinion that those victories had been paid for at a price greater than England could afford. If she had gained reputation and prestige, these could not fill the mouths of the landed class, gradually growing poorer, and the members of this class were not of a disposition to restrain their feelings as they noted the growing prosperity of the Whig stock-jobbers--a prosperity that was due to the very war which was beggaring them. If the landed man cried for peace, he was answered by the Whig stock-jobber that peace meant the ultimate repudiation of the National Debt, with the certainty of the reign of the Pretender. If the landed man spoke for the Church, the Whig speculator raised the shout of "No Popery!" The war had transformed parties into factions, and the ministry stood between a Scylla of a peace-at-any-price, on the one side, and a Charybdis of a war-at-any-price on the other; or, if not a war, then a peace so one-sided that it would be almost impossible to bring it about.