Note 58b — JOURNAL TO STELLA (continued 2)

Charles Davenant, LL.D., educated at Balliol College, Oxford, was the eldest son of Sir William Davenant, author of Gondibert. In Parliament he attacked Ministerial abuses with great bitterness until, in 1703, he was made secretary to the Commissioners appointed to treat for a union with Scotland. To this post was added, in 1705, an Inspector-Generalship of Exports and Imports, which he retained until his death in 1714. Tom Double, a satire on his change of front after obtaining his place, was published in 1704. In a Note on Macky’s character of Davenant, Swift says, “He ruined his estate, which put him under a necessity to comply with the times.” Davenant’s True Picture of a Modern Whig, in Two Parts, appeared in 1701–2; in 1707 he published The True Picture of a Modern Whig revived, set forth in a third dialogue between Whiglove and Double, which seems to be the piece mentioned in the text, though Swift speaks of the pamphlet as “lately put out.”