The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X.

Excerpt

Of late years, that is to say, within the last thirty odd years, there
has existed a certain amount of doubt as to whether or no the work known
to us as “The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen,” was really
the product of Swift’s pen.  That a work of this nature had occupied
Swift during his retirement at Windsor in 1713, is undoubted.  That the
work here reprinted from the edition given to the world in 1758, “by an
anonymous editor from a copy surreptitiously taken by an anonymous
friend” (to use Mr. Churton Collins’s summary), is the actual work upon
which Swift was engaged at Windsor, is not so certain.  Let us for a
moment trace the history of what is known of what Swift did write, and
then we shall be in a better position to judge of the authenticity of
what we have before us.