THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS

1903

CHISWICK PRESS CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON



INTRODUCTION

In 1714 Swift left England for Ireland, disappointed, distressed, and
worn out with anxiety in the service of the Harley Ministry. On his
installation as Dean of St. Patrick's he had been received in Dublin
with jeering and derision. He had even been mocked at in his walks
abroad. In 1720, however, he entered for the second time the field of
active political polemics, and began with renewed energy the series of
writings which not only placed him at the head and front of the
political writers of the day, but secured for him a place in the
affections of the people of Ireland--a place which has been kept sacred
to him even to the present time. A visitor to the city of Dublin
desirous of finding his way to St. Patrick's Cathedral need but to ask
for the Dean's Church, and he will be understood. There is only one
Dean, and he wrote the "Drapier's Letters." The joy of the people of
Dublin on the withdrawal of Wood's Patent found such permanent
expression, that it has descended as oral tradition, and what was