for indulgence in personal feeling against the men who had either
disappointed, injured, or angered him; for the party man affecting or
genuinely feeling party bitterness, for the tricks and subterfuges of the
paid advocate appealing to the passions and weaknesses of those whose
favour he was seeking to win; allowing for these, there are yet left in
these papers a noble spirit of wide-eyed patriotism, and a distinguished
grasp of the meaning of national greatness and national integrity.

The pamphleteers whom he opposed, and who opposed him, were powerless
against Swift. Where they pried with the curiosity and meanness of petty
dealers, Swift's insight seized on the larger relations, and insisted on
them. Where they "bantered," cajoled, and sneered, arousing a very mild
irritation, Swift's scornful invective, and biting satire silenced into
fear the enemies of the Queen's chosen ministers. Where their jejune
"answers" gained a simper, Swift's virility of mind, range of power, and
dexterity of handling, compelled a homage. His Whig antagonists had
good reason to dread him. He scoffed at them for an existence that was
founded, not on a devotion to principles, but on a jealousy for the power
others enjoyed. "The bulk of the Whigs appears rather to be linked to a
certain set of persons, than any certain set of principles." To these
persons also he directed his grim attention, Somers, Cowper, Godolphin,
Marlborough, and Wharton were each drawn with iron stylus and acid. To
Wharton he gave special care (he had some private scores to pay off), and
in the character of Verres, he etched the portrait of a profligate, an
unscrupulous governor, a scoundrel, an infidel to his religion and
country, a reckless, selfish, low-living blackguard. In the Letter to
Marcus Crassus, Marlborough is addressed in language that the simplest
farm-labourer could understand. The letter is a lay sermon on the vice of
avarice, and every point and illustration are taken from Marlborough's
life with such telling application that Marlborough himself must have