[Footnote 7:  From this and many previous passages it is obvious, that, in joining the Tories, Swift reserved to himself the right of putting his own interpretation upon the speculative points of their political creed. [S.]]

[Footnote 8:  See Swift’s “Presbyterians’ Plea of Merit,” and note, vol. iv., p. 36, of present edition. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 9:  James II. sent a Declaration to England, dated April 20th, 1692, in which he promised to pardon all those who should return to their duty.  He made a few exceptions, and among these were Ormonde, Sunderland, Nottingham, Churchill, etc.  It is said that of Churchill James remarked that he never could forgive him until he should efface the memory of his ingratitude by some eminent service. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 10:  “The Pretended Prince of Wales,” as he is styled in several Acts of Parliament, was first called “the Pretender” in Queen Anne’s speech to Parliament on March 11th, 1707/8.  She then said:  “The French fleet sailed from Dunkirk, Tuesday, at three in the morning, northward, with the Pretender on board.”  The same epithet is employed in the Addresses by the two Houses in reply to this speech.

It was currently reported that he was not a son of James II. and Queen Mary.  Several pamphlets were written by “W.  Fuller,” to prove that he was the son of a gentlewoman named Grey, who was brought to England from Ireland in 1688 by the Countess of Tyrconnel.  See also note on p. 409 of vol. v. of present edition. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 11:  An exhibition described at length in Ward’s “London Spy.”  The wonder and dexterity of the feat consisted in the damsel sustaining a number of drawn swords upright upon her hands, shoulders, and neck, and turning round so nimbly as to make the spectators giddy. [S.]]

NUMB. 41.[1]

FROM THURSDAY MAY 3, TO THURSDAY MAY 10, 1711.[2]

  Dos est magna parentium virtus.[3]

I took up a paper[4] some days ago in a coffee-house; and if the correctness of the style, and a superior spirit in it, had not immediately undeceived me, I should have been apt to imagine, I had been reading an “Examiner.”  In this paper, there were several important propositions advanced.  For instance, that “Providence raised up Mr. H[arle]y to be an instrument of great good, in a very critical juncture, when it was much wanted.”  That, “his very enemies acknowledge his eminent abilities, and distinguishing merit, by their unwearied and restless endeavours against his person and reputation”:  That “they have had an inveterate malice against both”:  That he “has been wonderfully preserved from some unparalleled attempts”; with more to the same purpose.  I immediately computed by rules of arithmetic, that in the last cited words there was something more intended than the attempt of Guiscard, which I think can properly pass but for one of the “some.”  And, though I dare not pretend to guess the author’s meaning; yet the expression allows such a latitude, that I would venture to hold a wager, most readers, both Whig and Tory, have agreed with me, that this plural number must, in all probability, among other facts, take in the business of Gregg.[5]