A PRETENDED

LETTER OF THANKS

FROM

LORD WHARTON

TO THE

LORD BISHOP OF ST ASAPH,

IN THE NAME OF

THE KITCAT CLUB

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

REMARKS ON THE BISHOP'S PREFACE.

FIRST PRINTED IN 1712,

PRETENDED LETTER OF THANKS.

THE learned William Fleetwood, successively bishop of St Asaph and Ely, had been one of Queen Anne's chaplains, and frequently preached before her during the administration of Godolhin. The queen was so partial to him, as usually to call him her bishop; his preferment having been conferred on her majesty's own motion. As he was a steady Whig in principle, he collected and published four of these sermons, with a preface; in which, to use the words of Steele, he endeavoured to shew, "that Christianity left us where it found us, as to our civil rights." But, besides an avowal of low-church principles, it contained a pointed and animated attack upon Oxford's administration. The following passage was particularly resented. "Never did seven such years together pass over the head of any English monarch, nor cover it with so much honour; the crown and sceptre seemed to be the queen's least ornaments. Those, other princes wore in common with her; and her great personal virtues were the same before and since. But such was the fame of her administration of affairs at home, such was the reputation of her wisdom and felicity in chusing ministers, and such was then esteemed their faithfulness and zeal, their diligence and great abilities in executing her commands; to such a height of military glory did her great general and her armies carry the British name abroad; such was the harmony and concord betwixt her and her allies; and such was the blessing of God upon all her undertakings, that I am as sure as history can make me, no prince of ours was ever yet so prosperous and successful, so loved, esteemed, and honoured by their subjects and their friends, nor near so formidable to their enemies. We were, as all the world imagined then, just entering on the ways that promised to lead to such a peace, as would have answered all the prayers of our religious queen, the care and vigilance of a most able ministry, the payments of a willing and obedient people, as well as all the glorious toils and hazards of the soldiery, when God, for our sins, permitted the spirit of discord to go forth, and, by troubling sore the camp, the city, and the country, (and, oh! that

it had altogether spared the places sacred to his worship!) to spoil for a time this beautiful and pleasing prospect, and give us in its stead, I know not what. Our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure. It will become me better to pray to God, to restore us to the power of obtaining such a peace, as will be to his glory, the safety, honour, and the welfare of the queen and her dominions, and the general satisfaction of all her high and mighty allies."

The Whigs took the most active measures to circulate this tract, by inserting it in the Spectator, then universally popular, and read by all parties. The Tories, on the other hand, were so incensed, that a motion was made and carried in the House of Commons, for having the Bishop's Preface publicly burnt; which was accordingly performed, 12th May 1712.

Swift, in the following tract, adds insult to indignity. The Kitcat club, in whose name it is pretended Lord Wharton writes, contained the very flower of the Whig wits and politicians. It derived its title, as is now generally agreed, from the name of the person who kept the tavern in which they met, and who was renowned for the art of making mutton pies. Old Jacob Tonson was their secretary. As Halifax, Wharton, Garth, and other members of the society, were supposed to be latitudinarians in religion, Swift assumes atheism as the characteristic quality of the body, in order to render their approbation more disgraceful to the bishop.

Mr Nichols believes the tract to be one of those seven which Swift published during the fortnight before the trade of Grub-street was destroyed by a stamp upon the productions of her inhabi tants. See Journal to Stella, 7th August, 1712.

t

A LETTER

TO

THE BISHOP OF ST ASAPH.

MY LORD,

Ir was with no little satisfaction I undertook the pleasing task, assigned me by the gentlemen of the Kit-cat club, of addressing your lordship with thanks for your late service so seasonably done to our sinking cause, in reprinting those most excellent discourses, which you had formerly preached with so great applause, though they were never heard of by us till they were recommended to our perusal by the Spectator, who, some time since, in one of his papers,* entertained the town with a paragraph out of the Postboy, and your lordship's extraordinary preface.

* The Spectator, No. 384, contains an extract from the PostBoy, about the rumoured death of the Chevalier St George, andɩ full copy of the Bishop's Preface, which had the effect, as the prelate himself assures us, of dispersing fourteen thousand copies.