Poor Swift fell at once into the trap.

He ought, of course, to have consulted Pope or Bolingbroke, and would probably have done so had his mind been sound.

Seeing, however, a volume already printed, he might naturally suppose that, in spite of the anonymous assurance, it was already too late to stop the publication.

At any rate, he at once sent it to his publisher, Faulkner, and desired him to bring it out at once.

Swift was in that most melancholy state in which a man's friends perceive him to be incompetent to manage his affairs, and are yet not able to use actual restraint.