So, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth,
Though half a crown out-pays his sweat's worth,
Who knows in law nor text nor margent,
Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant!
The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. “Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es-worth.”
“In what regiment, pray?” asked Swift.
A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time.
“I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintances.”—Journal to Stella.
“I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names to my man, never to let them see me.”—Journal to Stella.
The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:—
“Did I ever tell you that the lord treasurer hears ill with the left ear just as I do?... I dare not tell him that I am so, sir; for fear he should think that I counterfeited to make my court!”—Journal to Stella.
The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served very sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and bewails their “factitiousness” in the following letter:—
“BOLINGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.