SWIFT, Jonathan, one of the wittiest writers of his own, and surpassed by few of any other age, was the son of an attorney, who held the office of steward to the society of King’s Inns, Dublin. When the father died, it was found that he had not left behind him effects sufficient to pay his funeral expenses. At that period, his family consisted of a wife, then in a state of pregnancy, and an infant daughter. Soon after his death, his widow was delivered of a son, and the child thus ushered into a scene of indigence and grief, afterwards became the renowned dean of St Patrick’s. He was born at Dublin on the 30th of November 1667. By the bounty of two brothers-in-law, neither of them in affluent circumstances, Swift’s mother was maintained in some degree of comfort. The nurse to whose care her son had been confided was summoned to her native town, Whitehaven, by a dying relative, in whose will she hoped she had been remembered. The desire of gain, however, was not stronger than the love for her charge; and she finally reconciled her interest and her affection by absconding with the child. Having carried him to this town, she was authorized by his mother, whose anger was disarmed by this strange proof of her fondness, to keep him there until the recovery of his health, which she feared was too precarious to render his crossing the channel at that time a safe experiment. During their stay at Whitehaven, which lasted for three years, the nurse did not neglect little Jonathan’s education; for on his return to Dublin, his mother found that he had attained to considerable proficiency in spelling, and at the age of five years he was able to read any passage in scripture.

It is not probable that any combination of circumstances could have rendered Swift a pattern of meekness and humility. Early prosperity, however, might have softened if not subdued those irascible passions which, fostered by youthful mortifications, and matured by the disappointments of after life, finally gratified those who had writhed under his merciless castigation, by converting him into “a driveller and a show.” His paternal uncle, Godwin Swift, doled out the allowance for his maintenance with a very niggardly hand. This parsimony was warranted by his pecuniary circumstances, which were supposed to be in a more flourishing condition than they actually were; but Swift never reflected without bitterness on the despicable figure which the scanty liberality of his relation enabled him to make. To curse the hand that gives all that it has to bestow, appears to be both foolish and ungrateful. Perhaps, however, Swift’s uncle acted the part of a vulgar patron, whose ostentatious benevolence never fails to blunt the edge of gratitude. By the bounty of this relation, limited as it was, he was, in the sixth year of his age, sent to school at Kilkenny, from which in 1682 he was removed in his fourteenth year to Trinity College, Dublin. His academical career gave no promise of future eminence. Being persuaded that the syllogistic subtleties which were regarded by the Dublin tutors as the perfection of knowledge, instead of teaching the art of reasoning, only taught the art of wrangling, Swift turned with disgust from such scholastic exercises. The consequence was, that when he applied for the degree of A. B. he had not even acquired the jargon of the schools; and the degree was only conferred upon him speciali gratia, or, in other words, he owed to favour what he could not claim by merit.

At this period died his uncle Godwin, leaving his affairs in great disorder. His studies were now in some danger of being abruptly terminated; but another uncle, Dryden William Swift, befriended him in the hour of need, and seems to have drawn his purse with a better grace than his brother, for Swift speaks of him as “the best of his relations.” The consciousness of poverty and dependence, and of the mortifying circumstances under which he obtained his degree, he endeavoured to dissipate in a variety of those frolics by which a careless genius now and then, but more frequently an indolent blockhead, endeavours to get rid of a painful sense of insignificance, and to acquire, at an easy rate, the character of a youth of spirit. He neglected attending lectures and divine service, frequented taverns, absented himself from college at unseasonable hours, and was finally convicted of contemptuous insolence to Owen Lloyd, the junior dean. Of that functionary, who afterwards obtained a comfortable provision in the church by marrying a cast-off mistress of the duke of Wharton, he was obliged to beg pardon on his bended knees.^[1. See Dr Barrett’s Essay on the earlier Part of the Life of Swift, p. 15. Lend. 1808, 8vo. The chief aim of that production seems to be to fasten upon Swift the paternity of a certain Tripos, a satirical effusion, without sense or humour. It has been frequently asserted that Swift’» faculties came very slowly to maturity; but it would be more just to say that it was late before he had an opportunity of displaying them. While a student at Dublin, he had sketched his Tale of a Tub, the knowledge of which fact is alone sufficient to rescue him from the charge of having written, or assisted in writing, such a contemptible rhapsody as the Tripos. ] The atrocious sentiments that must have fermented in a mind like Swift’s, when compelled to submit to such a degradation as this, may be imagined from his conduct to others who provoked his wrath when he was in a better condition to make it felt. Such a mode of punishment reflects more infamy upon those who inflicted, than upon him who endured it; but no spectacle can be more useful to those that think superior endowments can rescue them from the mortifying consequences of indiscretion, than Jonathan Swift grovelling at the feet of one of the most despicable of mankind.

In 1688, when he was in the twenty-first year of his age, Swift quitted Ireland, a country which, although it was the land of his birth, he always regarded as a place of exile. Having repaired on foot, as it is said, to his mother’s residence in Leicestershire, he consulted with her about his future prospects, which looked sufficiently gloomy. She advised him to pay his court to Sir William Temple, who was connected with her family by marriage. To Temple he accordingly presented himself; and his forlorn plight procured him what he was in some danger of forfeiting by his sullenness and oddity of manners, a home under the roof of[7:21:35] the veteran statesman. But Swift applied himself with intense assiduity to his studies, and thus became qualified to amuse the learned leisure of his patron. In Sir William’s house, where he remained two years, he formed an acquaintance with no less a personage than King William the Third, who offered to make him a captain of horse. The only favour however which he ever received at the royal hands, was a lesson that his majesty gave him one day in the garden, on the Dutch mode of cutting asparagus. Swift was now in such high trust with Sir William, that he was employed by him to lay before the king some arguments in favour of triennial parliaments. This negociation was fruitless; for all the reasoning of Temple, reinforced by the eloquence of Swift, could not persuade King William that the proposed measure threatened no danger to the royal prerogative. Swift returned to Moorpark not a little crest-fallen, and often spoke of this lame conclusion of his dignified commission as a cure for vanity, less palatable than efficacious. He was now afflicted with a disorder which he had contracted in his youth by a surfeit of fruit. Giddiness and deafness were the symptoms of his malady, which visited him, after a longer or shorter respite, until the close of his life. Being advised to go to Ireland, he proceeded to that kingdom; but finding no benefit from his native air, he returned to Sir William Temple’s, where he resumed his studies. He had a notion that violent exercise was of advantage to his complaints, and used to leave his books every two hours for the purpose of running up and down a hill.

In 1692 he visited Oxford, and took the degree of A. M., which was conferred upon him with marks of distinction that fully consoled him for the contemptuous testimonial which he had received from his own university. About this period he occupied a portion of his time in the composition of verses. Besides some less ambitious attempts, he was persuaded by Sir William and Lady Temple to write Pindaric odes in the metaphysical manner of Cowley. These insipid dithyrambice, for such they are, he is said to have submitted to the inspection of Dryden, who observed with more candour than politeness, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.” This prediction filled the versifier with a degree of hatred which the death of the prophet did not abate.

Every rich man can have an obsequious fool to commend his sagacity, and the loss of a stupid parasite is easily supplied; but it is not always that the society of wit and learning is be obtained in exchange for the necessaries of life. Of this truth Temple was fully aware, and was in no haste to relieve Swift from the burden of dependence. Instructive as Sir William’s conversation is said to have been, Swift would gladly have obtained some suitable employment, at the expense of a final separation from his accomplished patron. When Temple learned which way his wishes pointed, he offered to make him deputy-master of the rolls in Ireland, the duties of which office he knew Swift had neither inclination nor ability to discharge. After some angry discussion, he left Temple’s house and went to Dublin. There he proposed to enter into holy orders, but was overwhelmed with chagrin when he learned that the bishops required a certificate of his character from the very man whom he had hoped to mortify, by evincing that he stood no longer in need of his assistance. Before he could bring his mind to solicit this attestation of his conduct, Swift deliberated nearly five months. The letter which he at last addressed to Temple has been preserved, and it appears to be the composition of a man perfectly stupified by the humiliating task that was imposed upon him. Although he acted the petitioner’s part with the worst grace in the world, Temple did what was required, and Swift was admitted to orders; soon after which he obtained from Lord Capell the prebend of Kilroot, which was worth about one hundred pounds a year. The life of a country parson was not at all adapted to the taste of Swift; and Temple soon discovered that, in the loss of his conversation, he had been deprived of the chief comfort of his declining years. Temple had neither time nor inclination to search for new companions, and Swift was recalled, with a request that he would resign his Irish prebend, and a promise that an English one would be procured for him in its stead. With this summons the insipidity of the life which he led at Kilroot, or perhaps better motives, induced him to comply. To Moorpark he accordingly returned in 1695, and lived there until Sir William’s death, which happened in 1699. Temple left him a legacy of a hundred pounds, and made him his literary executor. The king had promised Sir William to bestow upon Swift the first vacant prebend of Westminster or Canterbury. By way of refreshing his majesty’s memory, Swift dedicated to him Temple’s posthumous works, but without success. He attended for some time at court, but with no better result; and the name of this prince appears in the long list of those whom Swift detested with a cordiality that could admit of no increase. He gladly abandoned his fruitless solicitation, and accompanied the earl of Berkeley to Ireland, as his chaplain and private secretary. But a person called Bushe found means to persuade his lordship that a clergyman was not a proper secretary for a viceroy. He then offered his own services, and they were accepted. Swift was not a man to be trifled with, and his lordship was fain to pacify him by a promise of the first good living in his gift. The deanery of Derry soon afterwards became vacant, and when Swift felicitated himself in the anticipation of immediate preferment, he was waited upon by Bushe, who gave him to understand that he might have the living for a thousand pounds. “God confound you both for a couple of scoundrels!” Swift furiously exclaimed, and rushed out of the castle. But Berkeley had seen some specimens of his chaplain’s talents in the way of pasquinade, and thought it best to arrest his hand by presenting him with the rectory of Agher, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggan. To these the prebend of Dunlavin was added in the year 1700; but the income arising from all his preferments amounted to a sum very inferior to the emoluments of the deanery, which probably fell to the share of some ecclesiastic, who, in addition to his piety and learning, was possessed of a little ready money.

Swift is now to be viewed in the character of a lover, which he sustained with his usual eccentricity. He had an unhappy propensity to cultivate intimacies with women, whose partiality gratified his vanity, while his constitution protected him against the assaults of beauty. This unwarrantable pastime, in which he probably indulged without reflection, caused him incredible misery when living, and has left a deep stain upon his memory'. When a mere lad, he appears to have trifled with the affections of a country girl, who was his mother’s neighbour in Leicestershire. He next wrote a love-letter to a Miss Waryng. This composition is so stupid and extravagant, that it is difficult to conceive it to have been traced by the pen of Swift. The most bungling courtship, however, is often successful with ladies who have no rooted aversion to matrimony; and Swift’s love affairs thrived so much better than he wished, that he was compelled to write a second letter in a style of the most cutting indifference, in order to counteract the effect of the first, which was couched in heroic terms. This epistle produced the desired effect, and Swift was freed from the importunities of Miss Waryng. The warning which he had thus received was insufficient to deter him from committing similar follies. No sooner was he settled at Laracor, than he decoyed from England the daughter of Sir William Temple’s steward. This lady, whose name was Johnson, and upon whom Swift bestowed the fanciful appellation of Stella, had been left by Sir William a legacy of a thousand pounds; and the higher rate of interest given in Ireland was[7:21:36] the ostensible reason for her taking up her residence in that kingdom. She was accompanied by Mrs Dingley, a person in humble circumstances, and of feeble capacity, whose presence was designed to obviate calumny. Swift and Stella never met but in the presence of this or of some other third party: when he was absent, she and her friend lived in his parsonage, and shifted their quarters on his return. A rival in the affections of Stella appeared in Dr William Tisdale, a clergyman, whose notions on the subject of love resembled those of ordinary mortals. But Swift could not endure to see in the arms of another, a woman who would gladly have thrown herself into his own; and by his machinations this vulgar suitor was rejected. These tortuous ways, however, never conducted him to happiness; and with all his caution, Swift was only laying up for himself a fund of obloquy.

Excepting a few poetical essays, which cannot be called the foundation of his literary fame, Swift had hitherto published nothing. In 1701, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, appeared the “Dissensions in Athens and Rome.” This work, which excited much attention, was attributed to Burnet. Some critics, still more undiscerning, afterwards fathered upon Swift the Characteristics of Shaftesbury, whose general manner of writing is as verbose, ambitious, and declamatory, as that of Swift is concise, simple, and didactic; whose pleasantry is languid and insipid, while the sarcasm of Swift is withering, and his irony irresistible.

In 1704 was published “A Tale of a Tub.” There cannot be a doubt that Swift thought this performance calculated to serve the Church of England; but he executed his task in a manner so likely to produce ludicrous impressions of religion in general, that Voltaire immediately extended to him the right hand of fellowship, and hailed him as “le Rabelais d’Angleterre.” And the weapons with which he assails the Catholics and Presbyterians are not much more dignified than the flail and urinal with which he has equipped Bentley in the Battle of the Books. But whether this production is fitted to promote the interests of piety or retard them, it is scarcely hyperbolical to say, that to produce the same quantity of wit and humour in the same space, the exchequer of human knowledge would be ransacked in vain. His literary offspring, however, being more beautiful than exemplary, Swift had no wish to own it; but a clerical namesake and relation of his, who was willing to acquire the reputation of a wit, at the expense of being considered a little profane, confessed that he had some share in the composition of the Tale of a Tub. But those who were willing to take his own word for his impiety, had strong doubts of his wit; and his self-accusation may now be treated as modem judges treat the confessions of old women who acknowledge having dealings with the evil one.

The hint of the Battle of the Books was said to have been taken from Coutray’s “Histoire Poétique de la Guerre nouvellement déclarée entre les Anciens et les Modernes.” Johnson has given ear to this assertion; but the works of Coutray and Swift are more dissimilar from each other than Rasselas and Candide. The “Dissertation on the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit,” is written in Swift’s happiest vein, and his blows are aimed with good will.

In 1708 appeared “The Sentiments of a Church of England Man ;” that inimitable ridicule of astrology in general, and of one impostor, Partridge, in particular, “Predictions for the year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,” a name afterwards adopted by Steele in the Tatler; “An Argument against abolishing Christianity,” one of his happiest efforts in the ironical style; and the “Letter on the Sacramental Test.” The publication of the last-mentioned tract was regarded as a signal of retreat from the standard of the Whigs; and, with the exception of the dispassionate Addison, all his friends of that party became cold and estranged. Nor were their suspicions unfounded. During this year

Swift was employed by Archbishop King and the Irish prelacy, to solicit the remission of the first fruits and twentieth parts, in order to augment the incomes of the poorer clergy. But the experiment had been tried in England without converting the ecclesiastics from Toryism; and Godolphin declined conferring a like expensive favour on the Irish divines, many of whom he suspected to be disaffected to the government as well as the ministry. Finding that this negociation in behalf of his brethren was a hopeless undertaking, Swift endeavoured to promote his own interest in the best way he could. He had some prospect of being appointed secretary of an embassy to Vienna; but Lord Berkeley, whom he was to accompany, was detained in England by the infirmities of age. Interest was next exerted to procure his nomination as bishop of Virginia; but that scheme also proved abortive. He was now convinced that the Whigs would do nothing for him. Disgusted with compliments that could not long cajole a man of his penetration and knowledge of the world, and tired of waiting for the fulfilment of promises made with all the alacrity, and performed with the usual punctuality of a court, Swift returned, in no enviable frame of mind, to his Irish parsonage. During his stay in London, however, he had written his “Project for the Advancement of Religion which in some parts is more Utopian than might have been expected from his pen.

Swift was not long buried in the solitude of Laracor; for in 1710 he returned to England, being associated in the commission with the bishops of Ossory and Killaloe, who, in the impending change of ministry, were sent to renew the suit which he had formerly preferred without success. It was arranged that if the two bishops should leave London without bringing the matter to a satisfactory issue, Swift should remain to negociate with government to the best of his ability.

On the 1st of September 1710, he left Ireland, and on the 9th of that month reached London, where he was speedily plunged in business. His Journal to Stella, one of the most singular records that have been submitted to public inspection, gives a minute account of this stirring period of his history. With the exception of Godolphin, whose calm indifference had probably accelerated his political apostasy, the Whigs treated him with marked respect. But the politeness of those who seemed resolved to starve him into hostility when they were in a condition to be of service to him, he estimated at its real value. Somers stooped to make explanations which Swift did not think satisfactory; and Godolphin’s disdain he endeavoured to humble by means of a lampoon. He was soon afterwards introduced to Harley, refusing on the same day an invitation from Lord Halifax. Harley made him acquainted with St John, and both evinced the utmost eagerness to bind him to their interests. Swift asserted with great composure, that although a Whig in politics, he had always been a Tory in church affairs. A man that goes over to a victorious enemy, must say something to his new comrades, who, if his services are of any value, will readily admit his apologies: on his former associates his eloquence will in all likelihood be thrown away. From his Journal to Stella, it is manifest that Swift’s standard of political consistency was extremely low, and that he was ready to grasp the hand, whatever cause it maintained, that had any thing to give, or that could apply a balsam to the wounds of pride.

To prop the interest of the new rulers, Swift was required to conduct the Examiner, which was the organ of the ministerial party. Addison for some time opposed that publication in a paper called the Whig Examiner, but withdrew from the contest when he heard that Swift was about to take the field, probably because his gentle spirit detested the thoughts of entering the fists with a friend. Swift conducted the Examiner from the 10th of November 1710,[7:21:37] to the 14th of June 1711. During that period he attacked his opponents with the utmost fury, using against them all the arms of wit, sharpened by the first fervours of new-born zeal.

Immersed as he was in general politics, Swift did not neglect the object of his mission; and his interest with the ministry speedily obtained the boon that had so long been desired. But when he expected to be overwhelmed with the grateful acknowledgments of his brethren in Ireland, he received the astounding intelligence that the bishops had resolved to dispense with his services, and to put their trust in the duke of Ormond. The motive for recalling a commission, the object of which they were not aware had been already obtained, was an apprehension that Swift had formerly been too much caressed by the Whigs to have any influence with the party in power. When apprized of his triumph, Archbishop King apologized to the exasperated nuncio in a clumsy manner. In 1712 Swift published “The Conduct of the Allies,” and no political pamphlet ever produced more powerful effects. He proved that a prodigal expenditure of blood and treasure had secured to the English nation nothing but a few sprigs of laurel to decorate the empty heads of those chivalrous simpletons who fought the battles of ungrateful knaves, without any prospect of benefit to themselves. To state facts so strong as these requires little force of eloquence; nor does Swift’s pamphlet strike the reader of the present day as a very masterly specimen of writing. But when the blow is aimed at a vital part, it is unnecessary that the assailant should put forth all his strength. In the space of one week four editions were sold; the ministerial members quoted it in the House of Commons, and the other party talked of bringing the author to the bar of the House of Lords. The same year produced “A Proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English Tongue,” a publication which added nothing to his reputation; and “Reflections on the Barrier Treaty,” which are a sequel to the Conduct of the Allies.

In the character of a patron, Swift appears to great advantage. If he sometimes neglected the forms of politeness, he was never slow in conferring substantial benefits on meritorious persons. He was never more in his element than when he was distributing preferment, and few have made a more commendable use of their power. Lord Bacon has said that “prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.” In order to apply to Swift, this apophthegm must be reversed. In his prosperous days, he exerted his influence to retain the most deserving of his political opponents in their places, and performed many other generous actions; but when he awoke from the flattering dream of ambition, his heart, thus ennobled by good fortune, became the chosen residence of some of the worst passions of our nature.

Although his recommendation in favour of others was seldom neglected by his great friends, they seemed in no haste to provide for Swift himself. This, however, was no fault of theirs, but of the duchess of Somerset, whom he had lampooned. He held her up to public detestation, as being accessary to the murder of her husband, a calumny which she might have forgiven; but he also laughed at her red hair, and she vowed revenge. An opportunity soon afterwards occurred of presenting Swift to the see of Hereford; but the freckled favourite threw herself at the feet of her royal mistress, and with streaming eyes begged that her inhuman satirist should be refused the vacant mitre. The entreaties of the ministers were drowned in her clamours for revenge; and Swift, instead of obtaining an English bishopric, was rewarded for his services by an Irish deanery. This was the effect produced by the Windsor Prophecy; and the tears of one favourite marred the fortunes of Swift, the pertinacity of another, Mrs Masham, having, not long before, deprived Marlborough of all his employments, and occasioned the downfall of the Whig ministry. From such despicable sources do important events sometimes take their rise.

Soon after Swift went to take possession of his deanery of St Patrick’s, Dublin, he was summoned to reconcile Oxford and Bolingbroke, whose increasing animosity to each other threatened destruction to the Tory interest. Swift hastened to England, but his journey was fruitless; for he found that it was no temporary misunderstanding, from which they might be extricated by his wit and pleasantries, but that a rooted hatred had sprung up between them, which defied the most dexterous mediation.

“The Public Spirit of the Whigs” appeared in 1714. It is a virulent reply to Sir Richard Steele’s Crisis, the pamphlet that procured his expulsion from the House of Commons. At the intercession of Swift, Steele had been permitted to retain his post of commissioner of stamp-duties; but, blinded by ignorance or the rage of party, he denied the obligation and reviled his benefactor. It is intolerable to be upbraided with favours which one is not conscious of having received, and the careless Steele perhaps took little trouble to inquire who had been his friend; but he was not a man to be guilty of deliberate ingratitude.^[2. In a petulant letter to Swift relative to this affair, Steele says, “They laugh at you, if they make you believe your interposition has kept roe thus long in my office.” To which Swift replies with unanswerable force of reason, “Suppose they did laugh at me, I ask whether my inclinations to serve you merit to be rewarded by the vilest treatment, whether they succeeded or not? If your interpretation were true, I was laughed at only for your sake; which, I think, is going pretty far to serve a friend.” ] In this pamphlet Steele was attacked without mercy; and the Scotish nation was there treated with such insolence and rancour, that the duke of Argyle, accompanied by other northern peers, went to court to demand the punishment of the author. A reward of three hundred pounds was offered for his discovery; and Morphew the bookseller, and Barber the printer of the obnoxious pamphlet, were ordered into the custody of the black rod; but the ministers, by directing a prosecution against these men, for the expenses of which they were privately idemnified by a sum given to Swift for that purpose, disappointed the vengeance of the Scotish nobles. Nor is this much to be regretted; for he must be a very facetious person whose gibes can obscure the lustre of national renown; and to give importance to a libel by persecuting the author, is more patriotic than dignified.

Dr Swift’s political importance was now drawing near its close. In June 1714 he retired to a friend’s house in Berkshire, where he wrote “Free Thoughts on the present State of Public Affairs a tract which was then suppressed. At this period occurred the death of the queen, which restored his enemies to power, and drove him into Ireland to avoid the spectacle of their triumph. This event also deprived him of a thousand pounds, for which he had an order upon the exchequer.

During his residence in England, Swift formed another anomalous and tender connexion, which was followed by very tragical consequences. Miss Esther Vanhomrigh was the daughter of a widow lady of considerable fortune. At the house of Mrs Vanhomrigh he was a frequent visitor; and being struck with the contempt which the young lady displayed for the fopperies of the age, he took upon himself the dangerous task of directing her studies. The result was, that she conceived a passion for her instructor as impetuous as that which swelled the breast of Eloisa. Throwing aside maidenly reserve, she confessed her flame; and Swift had not sufficient fortitude to deprive himself of her society by owning his engagement with Stella. He ottered[7:21:38] her his friendship, which she rejected with disdain, and persisted until the end of her life in endeavouring to extort a more lively return of her passion. Had Swift been as other men, such sighs as hers could scarcely have been breathed in vain. The irascible passions he indulged without either compunction or remorse; his appeared to be the Indian’s creed, that revenge is virtue; and there is no glaring uncharitableness in supposing, that with the same temptation, and the same means of gratification, he would have yielded to the passion of love. There is, however, strong reason to suppose that he laboured under a physical incapacity. When Swift returned to Ireland, he was followed by Miss Vanhomrigh, who renewed her efforts to awake his tenderness. To render his perplexity insupportable, Stella began to droop, and it was in vain for him to affect ignorance of the cause. To save a life which was gradually wasting away under the agony of “hope deferred,” he consented that the nuptial blessing should be pronounced over Stella and himself, upon condition that they should continue in all respects to live as before. Stella was thus silenced, if not content; but Miss Vanhomrigh petitioned with frantic eagerness for that requital of her passion which neither the guilt nor innocence of her lover could bestow. At length her impatience became incapable of control, and she addressed a letter to Stella, desiring to know the nature of her connexion with the dean. Stella replied that they were married; and having sent Miss Vanhomrigh’s letter to Swift, she retired, full of just indignation, to the house of a friend at some distance from Dublin. In a paroxysm of rage, he rode to Marley Abbey, the residence of Stella’s miserable rival. With terror in her looks she begged in a trembling voice that her infuriated visitor would be seated. He answered by tossing her own letter to Stella on the table, and remounting his horse, rode back to town without having opened his lips. Miss Vanhomrigh only survived this interview a few weeks. The celebrated poem of Ca-denus and Vanessa, the name which Swift had bestowed upon her, was given to the world soon after her death. That melancholy event appeased the anger of Stella.

In 1724, the far-famed Drapier’s Letters disappointed the rapacity of Wood, who had obtained by patent the right of circulating halfpence and farthings to supply the deficiency of copper coinage in Ireland. These letters raised Swift to an unexampled height of popularity, although it would not be easy to prove that they had any better effect than that of intercepting the royal bounty. In 1727, Swift went to England, and, in conjunction with Pope, collected three volumes of Miscellanies. The same year produced Gulliver’s Travels. In comparing that singular production with Lucian’s True History, the work of the pupil must, in common candour, be preferred to that of the master. If Lucian has any covert meaning at all, it must be a design to ridicule credulous and lying travellers and historians. The introductory part of his narrative contains a promise, which he punctually fulfills, of relating a series of incredible wonders; and these have too much the aspect of a feverish dream to be a direct satire upon any modification of human absurdity. Swift, on the other hand, speaks in parables, it is true; but they are so plain, that he who runs may read. Those who think favourably of the sense and virtue of mankind, may detest the writer whose chief solicitude is to wound the vanity of his readers; but he can be at no loss to perceive that the ferocious scoffer laughs at all human dealings. Indeed there is little hazard in asserting, that the satire which is not obvious is good for nothing; and that lucubrations positively hazy are only for times when a man writes with a retainer of justice at his elbow.

When George I. died, Swift had probably some expectations from the new queen, who had sent him several complimentary messages, and seized upon some Irish silk which the dean had sent to Mrs Howard, her husband’s mistress, with whom she lived on very amicable terms. Wearing his silk, however, was the chief favour he ever received at her hands. She even broke a promise which she had made of sending him some medals; and he always spoke of her with aversion and contempt. For the latter feeling there is some ground, if she transmitted to him her grateful acknowledgments, as he said she did, for some of the bitterest irony that he ever wrote.

Towards the end of the year 1737, he had an attack of his old complaints, giddiness and deafness. He was then living in the house of Pope, which he left in a strange abrupt manner; but a letter of apology that he afterwards addressed to the poet was sufficient to atone for a graver offence. He hastened to a cheerless home; for he found Stella on the confines of the tomb, which sorrow and disease had probably stript of half its terrors. She expired on the 28th of January 1738, aged forty-four years. Thus died this unfortunate woman, whose history is inseparably connected with that of one of the most extraordinary persons whom this country has produced.

After the death of Stella, he endeavoured to dissipate his grief by directing his attention to public affairs; with what satisfaction to himself, the following passage from one of his letters to Pope will show. “I do profess, without affectation, that your kind opinion of me as a patriot (since you call it so) is what I do not deserve; because what I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, and folly, and baseness, about me, among which I am forced to live.”

In order to rescue Swift from the charge of fondness for low society, Dr Delany has displayed a long list of Irish worthies with whom the dean lived in habits of intimacy.^[3. Delany’s Observations upon Lord Orrery’s Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr Jonathan Swift, p. 90. Lond. 1754, 8vo. ] That he was addicted to the society of the lowest vulgar, there is no reason to believe; but that he preferred his inferiors in fortune and intellect as constant companions, he has himself acknowledged. In a letter to Pope, dated May 10,1728, he says, “I reckon that men subject like us to bodily infirmities, should only occasionally converse with great people, notwithstanding all their good qualities, easiness, and kindnesses. There is another race which I prefer before them, as beef and mutton for constant diet before partridges; I mean a middle kind both for understanding and fortune, who are perfectly easy, never impertinent, complying in every thing, ready to do a hundred little offices that you and I may often want, who dine and sit with me five times for once that I go to them, and whom I can tell, without offence, that I am otherwise engaged at present.” His exactions, which indeed no man could endure whose admiration of Swift did not outweigh respect for himself, became at last too tyrannous even for those humble friends. There can be few inducements to frequent a house where there is neither civility nor good cheer; and Swift found himself alone when age and sickness rendered solitude exceedingly dismal. Books, his usual resource against the languor of the hour, he could no longer read with the naked eye, and spectacles he had made some absurd resolution never to use. But if he could not be loved, he had not ceased to be an object of fear; for a few strokes of his envenomed quill reduced Serjeant Bettesworth, a lawyer who was in the constant habit of reviling the clergy, from affluence and professional celebrity to poverty and contempt. Nor did he desist from those acts of charity and benevolence, in which, however ungraciously performed, he had never been remiss. To indigent persons he lent[7:21:39] out five hundred pounds, in sums of from five to ten pounds; and his memory is still revered in many families which owe their prosperity to his judicious beneficence. Johnson, who, as Parr said of him, “weighed every man in the balance of the sanctuary,” but whose narrative is not a little tinged with the spleen that he condemns in the subject of it, talks of Swift employing “the catch-poll under the appearance of charity.” That Swift would not suffer profligate paupers to cheat him with impunity, it is easy to conceive; but there are few who would relish either the trouble or the risk of affording honest industry such chances of emerging from poverty. Besides, a man who parts with what he has no desire to keep to himself does nothing meritorious: but Swift loved money as much as he hated mankind; his alms-giving, therefore, was a signal triumph over avarice and misanthropy, and the conqueror is worthy of his garland.

In 1737, Swift took some steps toward publishing his History of the Peace of Utrecht, which he had written in 1714, and the title of which he altered to that of “The History of the four last years of Queen Anne.” The literary modesty, or indifference to literary renown, for which he was remarkable through life, induced him to listen to the suggestions of the meanest critics, and he was persuaded to abandon the idea of publishing this work. It appeared in 1758, but the dean would have lost little credit as an author if it had been entirely suppressed; for it sinks beneath the dignity of historical narrative, and has no pretensions to the candour of political sentiment. “Polite Conversation” appeared in 1738. It is an admirable satire on the pert retailers of conventional jocularity. The “Directions for Servants” were not printed until some time after his death.

The misanthropical musings in which he was constantly absorbed, at length terminated in madness. He was visited by that dreadful affliction in 1741, when legal guardians were appointed for his custody and sustentation. From the condition of a furious maniac, he gradually sunk into that of a harmless idiot; and in this lamentable situation he lingered until the 29th of October 1745, when he resigned a state of existence that only served to illustrate the precarious tenure upon which the favourites of nature hold her gifts. He was interred in St Patrick’s cathedral, where an appalling mural inscription, composed by himself, informs the reader who sleeps below. It is of the following tenor:

Hic depositum est corpus JONATHAN Swift, S. T. P. hujus Ecclesiae Cathedralis Decani; ∙ ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. Abi, viator, et imitare, si poteris, strenuum pro virili libertatis vindicem. Obiit anno (1745) mensis (Octobris) die (29), Aetatis anno (78).

Swift was tall, muscular, and well formed. His complexion was swarthy, and somewhat scorbutic; his aspect was forbidding; and but for his eyes, which were blue and of uncommon brilliancy, his features would have conveyed an expression of sombre arrogance. He was never known to laugh, and there was little gaiety in his smiles. His conversation had many attractions; in jest and repartee he was unrivalled, and related anecdotes with singular felicity. In his latter days, however, he was apt to go over the same ground too often. He was irascible and vindictive; but whether he was implacable or not, it is difficult to determine; for when provoked he struck so hard as to leave no room for reconciliation. His efforts to serve his friends, however, were as energetic as his attacks upon his enemies. Nor were his attachments of the holiday kind; for his love of Bolingbroke was not diminished by exile and proscription, and he was ready to wait upon Oxford in the Tower.

Notwithstanding his hatred of sectaries, it has been doubted whether the dean was a Christian. In the Tale of a Tub, his likening the cross to an old sign-post, and other indecorous pleasantries in the same performance, give some colour to the charge of infidelity which has been brought against him. Red-hot zeal for the interests of a particular church may be connected with a total unconcern for the interests of religion. This species of zeal only embraces the emoluments, dignities, and privileges of the clergy. It must however be kept in mind, that Swift had a mode of doing every thing peculiar to himself. He complimented his friends in ironical abuse, and abused his enemies in ironical compliments; and to his eccentric fancy a facetious panegyric on the number three, might perhaps appear as proper a way of defending the doctrine of the Trinity as any other. As a son, Swift was dutiful and affectionate to a remarkable degree. His sister, who had made a mean marriage, he relieved, but never pardoned. With his servants he was peevish and exacting, but was always prepared to render them important benefits when he had it in his power. The fruits of many years economy he bequeathed to found an asylum for lunatics. Against avarice he maintained a violent and successful struggle; but pride, ambition, and revenge were always masters of the field. His minor failings were a love of flattery, and a childish and petulant mode of conducting himself towards his superiors, which he mistook for dignity.

Upon the character of Swift as an author it is unnecessary to expatiate. No one is ignorant of his merits, and his faults are equally notorious. In grave irony he is second to none, and the writings of few are more deformed by obscenity and physical indelicacy. In his serious style, although it is easy and perspicuous, he is excelled by many. In his zeal for simplicity, he often borders upon meanness, as his own Jack is represented to have disfigured his coat by rudely tearing off its superfluous decorations. Swift had great skill in versification; but most of his poems were designed only for the inspection of his private friends, and his muse is often sportive, and generally trifling. Poetry he cultivated without any view to fame or profit, but in order to solace a mind that preyed upon itself when unemployed. To his reputation as a writer of prose he was equally indifferent. Posterity however has willingly extended to him that renown which is often withheld from more eager claimants; and it would be vain to contest his right to be considered a British classic of the first rank.