——­Pulcherrima proles,
  Magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis.[17]

His first great action was, like Scipio, to defend his father,[18] when oppressed by numbers; and his filial piety was not only rewarded with long life, but with a son, who upon the like occasion, would have shewn the same resolution.  No man ever preserved his dignity better when he was out of power, nor shewed more affability while he was in.  To conclude:  his character (which I do not here pretend to draw) is such, as his nearest friends may safely trust to the most impartial pen; nor wants the least of that allowance which, they say, is required for those who are dead.

[Footnote 1:  No. 40 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  Writing to Stella, May 14th, 1711, Swift informs her:  “Dr. Freind was with me, and pulled out a twopenny pamphlet just published called ‘The State of Wit,’ giving a character of all the papers that have come out of late.  The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called ‘The Examiner,’ and says the supposed author of it is Dr. Swift” (vol. ii., p. 176, of present edition). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  Horace, “Odes,” III. xxiv. 21.

“The lovers there for dowry claim
The father’s virtue, and the mother’s fame.” 
P. FRANCIS.

[T.S.]]

[Footnote 4:  “The Congratulatory Speech of William Bromley, Esq., ... together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Answer.”—­See also No. 42, post, pp. 273-4. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5:  See No. 33, ante, pp. 207-14. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6:  The writer of “A Letter to the Seven Lords” says this means “that there was a committee of seven lords, sent to a condemned criminal in Newgate, to bribe him with a pardon, on condition he would swear high treason, against his master.”

In Hoffman’s “Secret Transactions” (pp. 14, 15) the matter is thus referred to:  “Who those persons were that offered Gregg his life, with great preferments and advantages (if he would but accuse his master) may not uneasily be guessed at, for most of the time he was locked up none but people of note, were permitted to come near him, who made him strange promises, and often repeated them.” [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7:  “He does, with his own impudence, and with the malice of a devil, bring in both Houses of P——­ to say and mean the same thing....  It is matter of wonder ... to see the greatest ministers of state we ever had (till now) treated by a poor paper-pedlar, every Thursday, like the veriest rascals in the kingdom....  I could, if it were needful, bring a great many instances, of this licentious way of the scum of mankind’s treating the greatest peers in the nation” ("A Letter to the Seven Lords"). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 8:  The Earl of Galway was defeated by the Duke of Berwick at this battle on April 25th, 1707. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 9:  The Allies, under the Duke of Savoy, unsuccessfully laid siege to Toulon from July 26th to August 21st, 1707. [T.S.]]