WILLIAM AND MARY.

183

specimens which still remain, was that of a lacquey, or ratherof a beggar.* A sharp word or a cold look of the mastersufficed to make the servant miserable during several days.**But this tameness was merely the tameness with which a tiger,caught, caged and starved, submits to the keeper who bringshim food. The humble menial was at heart the haughtiest, themost aspiring, the most vindictive, the most despotic of men.And now at length a great, a boundless prospect was openingbefore him. To William he was already slightly known. AtMoor Park the King had sometimes, when his host was confinedby gout to an easy chair, been attended by the secretary aboutthe grounds. Ilis Majesty had condescended to teach his com-panion the Hutch way of cutting and eating asparagus, and hadgraciously asked whether Mr. Swift would like to have a cap-tain’s commission in a cavalry regiment. But noiv for the firsttime the young man was to stand in the royal presence as a coun-sellor. He was admitted into the closet, delivered a letter fromTemple, and explained and enforced the arguments which thatletter contained, concisely, but doubtless with clearness andability. There was, he said, no reason to think that shortParliaments would be more disposed than long Parliaments toencroach on the just prerogatives of the Crown. In fact theParliament which had, in the preceding generation, waged waragainst a king, led him captive, sent him to the prison , to thebar, to the scaffold, was known in our annals as emphaticallythe Long Parliament. Never would such disasters have befallenthe monarchy but for the fatal law which secured that assemblyfrom dissolution.*** There rvas, it must be ou’ned, a flaw inthis reasoning which a man less shrew'd than William mighteasily detect. That one restriction of the royal prerogative had

* See Swift’s Letter to Temple of Oct. G. 1694.

** Journal to Stella, Letter xix.

*** Swift's Anecdotes.

CHAP.

XiX.