INTRODUCTION


Of late years, that is to say, within the last thirty odd years, there
has existed a certain amount of doubt as to whether or no the work known
to us as "The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen," was really
the product of Swift's pen. That a work of this nature had occupied
Swift during his retirement at Windsor in 1713, is undoubted. That the
work here reprinted from the edition given to the world in 1758, "by an
anonymous editor from a copy surreptitiously taken by an anonymous
friend" (to use Mr. Churton Collins's summary), is the actual work upon
which Swift was engaged at Windsor, is not so certain. Let us for a
moment trace the history of what is known of what Swift did write, and
then we shall be in a better position to judge of the authenticity of
what we have before us.

All that we know of this work is gathered from Swift's correspondence,
as published by Sir Walter Scott in his edition of Swift's Works issued
in 1824. The first reference there made is in a note from Dr. William
King to Mrs. Whiteway, from which we gather that Swift, towards the end
of the year 1736, was meditating the publication of what he had written
in 1713. "As to the History," writes King, "the Dean may be assured I
will take care to supply the dates that are wanting, and which can
easily be done in an hour or two. The tracts, if he pleases, may be
printed by way of appendix. This will be indeed less trouble than the
interweaving them in the body of the history, and will do the author as
much honour, and answer the purpose full as well."

This was written from Paris, under date November 9th, O.S., 1736. It can
easily be gathered from this that the tracts referred to are the tracts