The first number of "The Examiner" was issued on August 3rd, 1710, and the paper was continued until July 26th, 1711. On December 6th, 1711, William Oldisworth revived it, and issued it weekly until December 18th, 1712, after which date it was published twice a week until July 26th, 1714, though it occasionally happened that only one was issued in a week. The last number was No. 19 of the sixth volume, so that Oldisworth edited vols. ii., iii., iv., v., and what was published of vol. vi. The death of the Queen put an end to the publication.
Swift was called to his work about the middle of October of 1710, and his first paper appeared in No. 14. From that number to No. 45, Swift continued with unabated zeal and with masterly effect to carry out the policy of his friends. He also wrote a part of No. 46, and Nos. 16 and 21 of the third volume, which appeared on January 16th and February 2nd, 1712-13. These two last numbers are not included in the present volume; since they have been printed in the fifth volume of this edition of Swift's works with the titles "An Appendix to the Conduct of the Allies" and "The Vindication of Erasmus Lewis."
The appearance of "The Examiner" had brought an opposition paper into the field, entitled "The Whig Examiner," a periodical that ably maintained its party's stand in the face of St. John's attacks. But this paper only lasted for five weeks, and when Swift took charge of the Tory organ, the position of "The Examiner" was entirely altered. As Mr. Churton Collins ably remarks: "It became a voice of power in every town and in every hamlet throughout England. It was an appeal made, not to the political cliques of the metropolis, but to the whole kingdom; and to the whole kingdom it spoke.... No one who will take the trouble to glance at Swift's contributions to 'The Examiner' will be surprised at their effect. They are masterpieces of polemical skill. Every sentence—every word—comes home. Their logic, adapted to the meanest capacity, smites like a hammer. Their statements, often a tissue of mere sophistry and assumption, appear so plausible, that it is difficult even for the cool historian to avoid being carried away by them. At a time when party spirit was running high, and few men stopped to weigh evidence, they must have been irresistible." ("Jonathan Swift," 1893, p. 81.)
In his "Memoirs relating to that Change" (vol. v., p 384), Swift gives the following explanation of the foundation of this paper. "Upon the rise of this ministry the principal persons in power thought it necessary that some weekly paper should be published, with just reflections upon former proceedings, and defending the present measures of Her Majesty. This was begun about the time of the Lord Godolphin's removal, under the name of 'The Examiner.' ... The determination was that I should continue it, which I did accordingly for about eight months."
Gay remarks in his pamphlet, "The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a Friend in the Country," 1711: "'The Examiner' is a paper which all men, who speak without prejudice, allow to be well writ. Though his subject will admit of no great variety, he is continually placing it on so many different lights, and endeavouring to inculcate the same thing by so many beautiful changes of expressions, that men who are concerned in no party, may read him with pleasure. His way of assuming the question in debate is extremely artful; and his 'Letter to Crassus' [No. 28] is, I think, a masterpiece.... I presume I need not tell you that 'The Examiner' carries much the more sail as 'tis supposed to be writ by the direction, and under the eye of some great persons who sit at the helm of affairs, and is consequently looked on as a sort of public notice which way they are steering us. The reputed author is Dr. S[wif]t, with the assistance sometimes of Dr. Att[erbur]y and Mr. P[rio]r." With the fall of Bolingbroke on the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I., "The Examiner" collapsed. [T.S.]