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.
All that we know of this work is gathered from Swift's correspondence, as published by Sir Walter Scott in his edition of Swift's Works issued in 1824.

The first reference there made is in a note from Dr.William King to Mrs.Whiteway, from which we gather that Swift, towards the end of the year 1736, was meditating the publication of what he had written in 1713.