The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume IV | Page 2

to the contrary, which I should be sorry to receive, I could
hardly forbear publishing some paper in opposition to it, or leaving one
behind me, if there should be occasion." In August of the same year the
agitation for the repeal was renewed, and in December Swift published
his "Letter on the Sacramental Test," writing as if from Dublin and as a
member of the Irish House of Commons. When he writes to King in the
following month he makes a mild attempt to convince the Archbishop
that the pamphlet was not of his authorship. "The author has gone out
of his way to reflect on me as a person likely to write for repealing the
test, which I am sure is very unfair treatment. This is all I am likely to
get by the company I keep. I am used like a sober man with a drunken
face, have the scandal of the vice without the satisfaction." But King
was not deceived. In his reply to Swift he simply remarks: "You need
not be concerned: I will engage you will lose nothing by that paper."
Swift, however, lost more than the Archbishop thought; for "that paper"
led to his severance from the Whigs, and, in after life, to much
contumely cast on his character for being a political renegade. Because
"he was not Whig enough;" because he would not forsake his Church
for his party, critics and biographers have thought fit to make little of
him, and to compare him to his discredit with contemporaries whose

intellects he held in the palm of his hand, and to whom he might have
stood as a moral exemplar.
Swift refers to this tract in his "Memoirs relating to the change in the
Queen's Ministry," as follows:--"It was everybody's opinion, that the
Earl of Wharton would endeavour, when he went to Ireland, to take off
the test, as a step to have it taken off here: upon which I drew up and
printed a pamphlet, by way of a letter from a member of parliament
here, shewing the danger to the Church by such an intent. Although I
took all care to be private, yet the Lieutenant's chaplain, and some
others guessed me to be the author, and told his Excellency their
suspicions; whereupon I saw him no more until I went to Ireland."
The tract is one of the most favourable specimens of Swift's
controversial method and trenchant satire. The style is
excellent--forcible and pithy; while the arguments are like most of
Swift's arguments, aptly to the point with yet a potentiality of
application which fits them for the most general statement of the
principles under discussion. Scott considers the pamphlet "as having
materially contributed to the loss of the bill for repeal of the Test Act
during the Earl of Pembroke's vice-royalty." In the same year Swift
wrote "A Letter to a Member of Parliament in Ireland on choosing a
new Speaker there." This short tract bears also on the question of the
Test; but it is not included in this volume, since it was intended as an
electioneering pamphlet.
I have been unable to obtain access to a copy of the first edition of the
"Letter on the Sacramental Test." The text here given is that of the
"Miscellanies" of 1711, collated with that given in the "Miscellanies,"
1728, and with those printed by Faulkner, Hawkesworth, and Scott.
[T.S.]
A LETTER CONCERNING THE SACRAMENTAL TEST.
_ADVERTISEMENT._[1]
[Footnote 1: This "Advertisement" is taken from "Miscellanies in Prose
and Verse," printed for John Morphew, 1711. On page 314 of that
volume it forms a "foreword" to "A Letter concerning the Sacramental
Test." It is omitted from the reprint in the "Miscellanies" of 1728. The
page which Swift says he has taken leave to omit cannot be identified.
Probably this was another of Swift's manoeuvres for concealing the
identity of the author. The "Advertisement" of George Faulkner to his

edition of Swift's Works (vol. iv., 1735) is as follows:
"In the second volume of Doctor Swift's and Mr. Pope's 'Miscellanies,'
I found the following treatise, which had been printed in London, with
some other of the Dean's works, many years before, but at first came
out by itself in the year 1708, as the date shews: And it was at a
juncture when the Dissenters were endeavouring to repeal the
Sacramental Test, as by common fame, and some pamphlets published
to the same purpose, they seem to be now again attempting, with great
hope of success. I have, therefore, taken the liberty to make an extract
out of that discourse, omitting only some passages which relate to
certain persons, and are of no consequence to the argument. But the
author's weight of reasoning seems at present to have more weight than
it had