SWIFT.

AN account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkefworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long fince communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with fo much elegance of language and force of fentiment.

JONATHAN SWIFT was, according to an account faid to be written by himself*, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the fon of a clergyman, who was minifter of a parish in Herefordshire. During his life the place of his birth was undetermined. He was

* Mr. Sheridan in his Life of Swift obferves, that this account was really written by the Dean, and now exists in his own handwriting in the library of Dublin College. R.

+ Spence's Anecdotes, vol. II. p. 273.

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contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish; but would occafionally call himself an Englishman. The queftion may, without much regret, be left in the obfcurity in which he delighted to involve it.

Whatever was his birth, his education was Irish. He was fent at the age of fix to the school at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year (1682) was admitted into the Univerfity of Dublin.

In his academical ftudies he was either not diligent or not happy. It must disappoint every reader's expectation, that, when at the ufual time he claimed the Bachelorship of Arts, he was found by the examiners too confpicuoufly deficient for regular admiffion, and obtained his degree at last by special favour; a term used in that univerfity to denote want of merit. Of this difgrace it may be eafily fuppofed that he was much afhamed, and fhame had its proper effect in producing reformation. He refolved from that time to ftudy eight hours a-day, and continued his industry for seven years, with what improvement is, fufficiently known. This part of his ftory well deferves to be remembered; it may afford useful admonition and powerful encouragement to men, whose abilities have been made for a time useless by their paffions or pleasures, and who, having loft one part of life in idlenefs, are tempted to throw away the remainder in despair.

In this courfe of daily application he continued three years longer at Dublin; and in this time, if the obfervation and memory of an old companion may be trufted, he drew the first sketch of his "Tale of a Tub."

When he was about one-and-twenty (1688), being by the death of Godwin Swift his uncle, who had

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