FN 478 The eulogies on Somers and the invectives against him are innumerable.  Perhaps the best way to come to a just judgment would be to collect all that has been said about him by Swift and by Addison.  They were the two keenest observers of their time; and they both knew him well.  But it ought to be remarked that, till Swift turned Tory, he always extolled Somers not only as the most accomplished, but as the most virtuous of men.  In the dedication of the Tale of a Tub are these words, “There is no virtue, either of a public or private life, which some circumstances of your own have not often produced upon the stage of the world;” and again, “I should be very loth the bright example of your Lordship’s virtues should be lost to other eyes, both for their sake and your own.”  In the Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions at Athens and Rome, Somers is the just Aristides.  After Swift had ratted he described Somers as a man who “possessed all excellent qualifications except virtue.”

FN 479 See Whiston’s Autobiography.

FN 480 Swift’s note on Mackay’s Character of Wharton.

FN 481 This account of Montague and Wharton I have collected from innumerable sources.  I ought, however, to mention particularly the very curious Life of Wharton published immediately after his death.

FN 482 Much of my information about the Harleys I have derived from unpublished memoirs written by Edward Harley, younger brother of Robert.  A copy of these memoirs is among the Mackintosh MSS.

FN 483 The only writer who has praised Harley’s oratory, as far as I remember, is Mackay, who calls him eloquent.  Swift scribbled in the margin, “A great lie.”  And certainly Swift was inclined to do more than justice to Harley.  “That lord,” said Pope, “talked of business in so confused a manner that you did not know what he was about; and every thing he went to tell you was in the epic way; for he always began in the middle.”—­Spence’s Anecdotes.

FN 484 “He used,” said Pope, “to send trifling verses from Court to the Scriblerus Club almost every day, and would come and talk idly with them almost every night even when his all was at stake.”  Some specimens of Harley’s poetry are in print.  The best, I think, is a stanza which he made on his own fall in 1714; and bad is the best.

“To serve with love,
And shed your blood,
Approved is above;
But here below
The examples show
’Tis fatal to be good.”

FN 485 The character of Harley is to be collected from innumerable panegyrics and lampoons; from the works and the private correspondence of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Prior and Bolingbroke, and from multitudes of such works as Ox and Bull, the High German Doctor, and The History of Robert Powell the Puppet Showman.

FN 486 In a letter dated Sept. 12. 1709 a short time before he was brought into power on the shoulders of the High Church mob, he says:  “My soul has been among Lyons, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongues sharp swords.  But I learn how good it is to wait on the Lord, and to possess one’s soul in peace.”  The letter was to Carstairs.  I doubt whether Harley would have canted thus if he had been writing to Atterbury.