Drapier" the very idol of the people of Dublin. It was now well-known that the writer of the letters was the Dean of St. Patrick. Swift had an intention of disclosing himself publicly, but on the advice of his friends decided to remain anonymous. His portrait was published and had an extensive scale. An apt quotation from the Old Testament (I Samuel, Chap. XIV. Verses 43, 44, 45) was printed and circulated through the city. "Then Saul said to JONATHAN, Tell me what thou hast done? . . . God do so, and more also, for thou shalt surely die, JONATHAN. And the people said unto Saul, Shall JONATHAN die who hath wrough this great salvation to Israel? God forbid; as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued JONATHAN that he died not." The Scriptural Verses were chanted in the streets of Dublin.

Dr. Thomas Sheridan, who wrote a life of Swift, relates that the day after the proclamation was issued, the Dean of St. Patrick, with characteristic audacity, attended a levee at the Castle and placing himself before the Viceroy, loudly exclaimed in tones of bitterness and indignation:-" So my Lord Lieutenant, this is a glorious exploit that you performed yesterday in issuing a proclamation against a poor shopkeeper whose only crime is an honest endeavour to save his country from ruin. You have given a noble specimen of what this devoted nation is to hope for from your Government. I suppose you expect a statue of copper will be erected to you for this service done to Wood." The whole assembly, were, we are told, struck mute with wonder at this unprecedented scene. But what of the Lord Lieutenant?how did he take it? Sheridan adds that Carteret listened with great composure to Swift's outburst, and then replied in a line from Virgil-" Hard fortune, and the newness of my reign, compel me to such means." Carteret and Swift were intimate friends, having met in London long before this time, and each entertained the greatest admiration for the other's ability and greatness all through life. "What in God's name do you do here?" exclaimed Swift, at a subsequent interview with Carteret at the Castle. "Get back to your own country and send us our boobies again.”

Failing to get at the author of the Drapier Letters, the Government instituted a prosecution against the printer and publisher, John Harding of Molesworth-court, off Fishamblestreet. On the eve of the trial Swift published anonymously a letter addressed to the grand jury of the City of Dublin inviting them to throw out the bill against "an unfortunate poor devil of a printer" whose only offence was that he tried to earn an honest livelihood by publishing the letters As for the Drapier, he deserved well of his country, and ought to be supported. Let the grand jury spurn the bill. They had nothing to gain by returning the bill, and nothing to fear by rejecting it. Chief Justice Whitshed-the same judge who tried Waters the publisher of the pamphlet on the use of Irish manufactures-presided at the Commission, and again left nothing undone in the way of threats and cajolery to bring about the conviction of the prisoner. But the grand jury threw out the bill by a majority of twenty-seven to eleven. In his rage Whitshed unconstitutionally dissolved the panel, before the business of the Commission was done with, and had a new grand jury summoned. The new grand jury turned out to be even more recalcitrant than the other. They not only refused to find a true bill against Harding, but they passed, instead, a resolution stigmatising as enemies to the King's Government, and to the peace and welfare of his Majesty's subjects of the Kingdom of Ireland, all persons who attempted to put the obnoxious half-pence of Mr. Wood into circulation. Harding was remanded in custody till the next Commission, and died in prison.

The popular clamour against the coins became only the more noisy and determined from these proceedings. Swift continued to pour from the press, letter and pamphlet and broadside and ballad, savagely attacking the half-pence and lampooning Wood. One of the letters was addressed to Lord Chancellor Midleton, who was known to be in sympathy with the agitation against the coinage. It is dated "Deanery House, Oct. 1724" and is signed "J. S." Swift in this production refers to the Drapier as some different person from himself, and defends him from the charge that his object was to sow the seeds of dissension in Ireland. As

to the coins he says: "If the bellman of each parish, as he goes his circuit, would cry out every night, Past twelve o'clock. Beware of Wood's half-pence,' it would probably cut off the occasion for publishing any more pamphlets, provided that in country towns it were done upon market days." He, himself, if forbidden to speak would go when he was in danger of bursting, and whisper among the reeds, "Beware of Wood's half-pence!"

The cause of the unfortunate half-pence was now lost beyond all redemption. Every night the streets of Dublin were paraded by mobs singing the praises of the Drapier and carrying an effigy of Wood which, at the end of the march, they burned amid execrations. "All parties without distinction of party, country or religion are against the halfpence." So wrote Archbishop Boulter (an Englishman who had been appointed to the Primacy of Armagh), to the Duke of Newcastle, a member of the Government, early in 1725. "Their agreement in this," he continues, "has had a very unhappy influence on the state of affairs here, bringing together Papists, Jacobites and Whigs; so that 'tis questioned whether, if there were occasion, justices of the peace could be found that would with any strictness search and disarm Papists." The Primate lifts up his eyes in horror at this spectacle of a united Irish people, which might result in some amelioration of the sad lot of the largest section of them, the Roman Catholics, and suggests, in order to bring to an end the amity and harmony among all classes in Ireland, that Wood should be induced to resign the patent, by the offer of a handsome sum as compensation. The Government thought the suggestion an excellent one and resolved to act upon it. When the Irish Parliament met for an autumn Session on September 21, 1725, Lord Carteret was in a position to announce that the patent had been cancelled. "I have His Majesty's commands," said the Viceroy, "to acquaint you that an entire end is put to the patent formerly granted to Mr. Wood for the coining of copper half-pence and farthings for this Kingdom, by a full and effectual surrender thereof to His Majesty." The speech went on to say as if to point the moral:-" So remarkable an instance of his royal favour and condescension must fill the hearts of

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a loyal and obedient people with the highest sense of duty." But that was not the moral. Nor was it the defeat of Wood's patent. The moral was that this was the first triumph of constitutional agitation in Ireland. It is true there was a private arrangement by which Wood got as compensation £3,000 a year for three years. The Irish Parliament had to "pay the fiddler," as Lord Carteret put it in one of his letters. Still, the country rang with the praises of Swift. He was the idol of the people. Medals were struck in his honour. His portrait was woven on handkerchiefs. When he was seen in the streets all heads were uncovered in reverence for one who had infused a new spirit into the country. And though the people returned again to the use of their old copper money"the worst that ever was seen," as Lord Carteret described it-though the country settled down to its normal condition, and though the Irish Parliament was enabled once more to give its attention to forging fresh penal chains for the Irish Catholics, there had been set alight that love of country in whose consecrating fires all baser passions were, in time, to be consumed.

Swift died in October, 1745, at the age of 78. "The Dublin Journal" contains an obituary notice of just twenty lines. Faulkner, the editor, laconically apologises for his brevity by saying of Swift--" his genius, works, learning and charity are so universally admired that to attempt delineating his character would be the highest presumption; yet as the printer hereof is proud to acknowledge his infinite obligations to the prodigy of wit he can only lament that he is unequal to so vast a design." Swift was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. He had wished, to be interred in the church of Holyhead. This curious wish was prompted by the hope that those who crossed St. George's Channel on missions of Government might be reminded by the tomb of Drapier at Holyhead of Ireland's right to justice and freedom.

THE FIRS

All through the drowsy summer day,
In lone communing silence, they
Dark, stately firs, in long array—

Like Brothers vowed steal forth to pray.

And through the watches of the night
When earth is gripped in darkness tight,
They stand and plead that morning dight
In robes of grace, may bring them light.

Too, when the winds of Winter leap
The gateway of their dungeon deep
And o'er the wastes unfettered sweep,
The trusty firs their vigil keep.

When gleeful Spring returns to pour
The rich rain of her jewelled store
On stream and field and mountain hoar
They, joining hands, pray still the more.

On windswept height, in glen or glade,
The stately fir trees, unafraid,

Bend to the will of Him who made

The storm and calm, the light and shade.

E. P. DOWLING.