infidelity to honour. There can be no defence of the Oxford
administration, for the manner in which it separated England from its
allies and treated with a monarch who was well known to it as a
political chicaner. The result brought a treaty by which Louis XIV.
gained and the allies lost, and this in spite of the offers previously
made by the bankrupt monarch at Gertruydenberg.

The further contents of this volume deal with what might better be
called Swiftiana. They include a collection of very interesting
annotations made by Swift in his copies of Macky's "Characters,"
Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," Burnet's "History of his Own
Time," and Addison's "Freeholder." The notes to Clarendon and Burnet
have always found an important place in the many editions of these
well-known works which have been issued from time to time. As here
reprinted, however, they have in all cases been compared with the
originals themselves. It will be found that very many additions have
been made, the result of careful comparison and collation with the
originals in Swift's handwriting.

My obligations are again due to Mr. W. Spencer Jackson for very valuable
assistance in the collation of texts; to Mr. George Ravenscroft Dennis
for several important suggestions; to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald for the use I
have made of his transcriptions; and to Mr. Strickland of the National
Gallery of Ireland for his help in the matter of Swift portraits.

I am greatly indebted to Mr. C. Litton Falkiner of Killiney, co.
Wicklow, for his untiring assistance to me during my stay in Dublin; to
the Very Rev. the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral for permission to
consult the Marsh collection; and to the Rev. Newport J.D. White, the
courteous librarian of the Marsh Library, for enthusiastic aid in my