He refused, indeed, fifty pounds from lord Oxford; but he accepted, afterwards, a draught of a thousand upon the exchequer, which was intercepted by the queen's death, and which he resigned, as he says himself, "multa gemens," with many a groan[102]. In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, some odd attraction; the reader finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is disappointed he can hardly complain. It is easy to perceive, from every page, that though ambition pressed Swift into a life of bustle, the wish for a life of ease was always returning. He went to take possession of his deanery as soon as he had obtained it; but he was not suffered to stay in Ireland more than a fortnight, before he was recalled to England, that he might reconcile lord Oxford and lord Bolingbroke, who began to look on one another with malevolence, which every day increased, and which Bolingbroke appeared to retain in his last years. Swift contrived an interview, from which they both departed discontented: he procured a second, which only convinced him that the feud was irreconcilable: he told them his opinion, that all was lost. This denunciation was contradicted by Oxford; but Bolingbroke whispered that he was right. Before this violent dissension had shattered the ministry, Swift had published, in the beginning of the year 1714, the publick Spirit of the Whigs, in answer to the Crisis, a pamphlet for which Steele was expelled from the house of commons. Swift was now so far alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to decency, and, therefore, treats him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes with abhorrence. In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms so provoking to that irritable nation, that resolving "not to be offended with impunity," the Scotch lords, in a body, demanded an audience of the queen, and solicited reparation. A proclamation was issued, in which three hundred pounds were offered for the discovery of the author. From this storm he was, as he relates, "secured by a sleight;" of what kind, or by whose prudence, is not known; and such was the increase of his reputation, that the Scottish "nation applied again that he would be their friend." He was become so formidable to the whigs, that his familiarity with the ministers was clamoured at in parliament, particularly by two men, afterwards of great note, Aislabie and Walpole.