By the late

Jonathan Swift,

D.D.  D.S.P.D.

Published from the

Last manuscript Copy, Corrected and

Enlarged by the Author’s own hand.

London: 

Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand: 

MDCCLVIII.

ADVERTISEMENT

PREFIXED TO THE EDITION OF 1758.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This advertisement was written by the editor, Dr. Charles Lucas of Dublin.  This Lucas was the patriot who created such a stir in Irish politics between the years 1743 and 1750.  Lord Townshend, in a letter to the Marquis of Granby, called him “the Wilkes of Ireland.”  As an author he seems to have been very prolific, though of no polish in his writings.  Lucas’s disclaimers of sympathy with the opinions contained in the work he edited are somewhat over-stated, and his criticisms are petty.  A full account of this hot-headed physician may be found in the Dictionary of National Biography.  It was Dr. Johnson, in his life of Swift, who first published the information that Lucas edited this “History.” [T.S.]]

Thus, the long wished for History of the Four Last Years of the Queen’s Reign is at length brought to light, in spite of all attempts to suppress it!

As this publication is not made under the sanction of the name, or names, which the author and the world had a right to expect; it is fit some account of the works appearing in this manner should be here given.

Long before the Dean’s apparent decline, some of his intimate friends, with concern, foresaw the impending fate of his fortune and his works.  To this it is owing, that these sheets, which the world now despaired of ever seeing, are rescued from obscurity, perhaps from destruction.

For this, the public is indebted to a gentleman, now in Ireland, of the greatest probity and worth, with whom the Dean long lived in perfect intimacy.  To this gentleman’s hands the Dean entrusted a copy of his History, desiring him to peruse and give his judgment of it, with the last corrections and amendments the author had given it, in his own hand.

His friend read, admired, and approved.  And from a dread of so valuable and so interesting a work’s being by any_ accident lost or effaced, as was probable by its not being intended to be published in the author’s lifetime; he resolved to keep this copy, till the author should press him for it; but with a determined purpose, it should never see the light, while there was any hopes of the author’s own copy being published, or even preserved.

This resolution he inviolably kept, till he and the world had full assurance, that the Dean’s executors, or those into whose hands the original copy fell, were so far from intending to publish it, that it was actually suppressed, perhaps destroyed.