! lege of Dublin. Guided, it may be supposed, more by affection than hope, he bent his course to England, and travelled on foot to his mother's residence, who was then in Leicestershire. Herself in a dependent and precarious situation, Mrs. Swift could only recommend to her son to solicit the patronage of Sir William Temple, whose lady was her relation, and had been well acquainted with the family of the Swifts, and in whose house Thomas Swift, the cousin of our author, had already resided as a chaplain. The application was made, and succeeded; but for some time Sir William Temple's patronage seemed to be unattended either by confidence or affection. The accomplished statesman, and polite scholar, was probably, for a time, unreconciled to the irritable habits, and imperfect learning of his new inmate.* But Sir William's prejudices became gradually weaker, as Swift's exquisite power of observation increased his faculties of pleasing, while his knowledge was expanded by a course of study so hard, that it engaged eight hours of every day. Such a space of time, well employed, soon rendered a man of Swift's powers an invaluable treasure * In the letter to Lady Bradshaigh, already quoted, Richardson says, "Mr. Temple, nephew to Sir William Temple, and brother to Lord Palmerston, who lately died at Bath, declared to a friend of mine, that Sir William hired Swift, at his first entrance into the world, to read to him, and sometimes to be his amanuensis, at the rate of L.20 a-year and his board, which was then high preferment to him; but that Sir William never favoured him with his conversation because of his ill qualities, nor allowed him to sit down at table with him. Swift, your ladyship will easily see, by his writings, had bitterness, satire, moroseness, that must make him unsufferable to his equals and inferiors, and unsafe for his superiors to countenance. Sir William Temple was a wise and discerning man. He could easily see through a young fellow, taken into a low office, and inclined to forget himself. Probably too, the Dean was always unpolite, and never could be a man of breeding. Sir William Temple was one of the politest men of his time."-Richardson's Correspondence, VI. 173. The outlines of this unfavourable statement are probably true, if restricted to the earlier part of Swift's residence at Moorpark. But we must not forget, that the enmity which subsisted between him and all the descendants of Sir William Temple, may account for Mr. Temple's placing his conduct in a disreputable light, to a patron like Temple, with whom he remained about two years. His studies were partially interrupted by bad health. He had contracted, from a surfeit of stonefruit, a giddiness and coldness of stomach, which almost brought him to his grave, and the effects of which he felt during his whole life-time.* At one time he was so ill that he visited Ireland, in hopes of experiencing benefit from his native air; but finding no advantage It here becomes the indispensable duty of an editor, briefly to notice the opinion expressed by the learned Dr. Beddoes, who, in the ninth essay of his work, entitled Hygeia, has directly ascribed the vertigo of Swift, with all its distressing consequences, to habits of early and profligate indulgence. And he has argued upon our author's conduct towards Stella and Vanessa, as indicating the inflamed imagination, and the exhausted frame of a premature voluptuary, who still courted pleasures he was unable to enjoy. The same conclusion, Dr. Beddoes is disposed to derive, from the tone of gross indelicacy, of which Swift's writings afford too many proofs. To the hypothesis of this ingenious writer, we may oppose, first, the express declaration of Swift himself, that this distressing malady originated in the surfeit mentioned in the text, a cause which medical professors have esteemed in every respect adequate to produce such consequences. Secondly, His whole intercourse with Stella and Vanessa, indicates the very reverse of an ardent or licentious imagination; and proves his coldness to have been constitutionally inherent, both in mind and person, and utterly distinct from that of one who retains wishes which he has lost the power to gratify. Those who choose to investigate this matter further, may compare Swift's Journal to Stella, with Pope's Letters to the Miss Blounts, in which there really exists evidence of that mixture of friendship, passion, and licentious gallantry, which the learned author of Hygeia has less justly ascribed to the correspondence between Swift and Stella. Lastly, Without raking deeper into such a subject, it may be briefly noticed, that the coarse images and descriptions with which Swift has dishonoured his pages, are of a nature directly opposite to the loose impurities by which the exhausted voluptuary feeds his imagination. The latter courts the seductive images of licentious pleasure; but Swift has indulged in pictures of a very different class, and has dwelt on physical impurities, calculated to disgust, and not to excite the fancy. We may, therefore, safely take Swift's word for the origin of his malady, as well as for his constitutional temperance. And, until medical authors can clearly account for, and radically cure the diseases of their contemporary patients, they may readily be excused from assigning dishonourable causes for the disorders of the illustrious dead. The following receipt for his malady, by the celebrated Dr. Ratcliffe, was found among Mr. Smith's papers, endorsed in the Dean's hand from the change, he again returned to Moorpark, and employed in his studies the intervals which his disorder afforded. It was now that he experienced marks of confidence from Temple, who permitted him to be present at his confidential interviews with King William, when that monarch honoured Moorpark with his visits, a distinction which Temple owed to their former intimacy in Holland, and which he received with respectful ease, and repaid by sound and constitutional advice. Nay, when Sir William's gout confined him to his chamber, the duty of attending the King devolved upon Swift; and it is recorded by all the poet's biographers, that William offered him a troop of horse, and showed him how to cut asparagus the Dutch way. It would be unjust to suppress the additional advantage be acquired. in learning, by the royal example, to eat the same vegetable with Dutch economy, on which subject the reader will find a lively anecdote at the bottom of the page.* "R. Nov. 3d, 1733. Dr. Ratcliff's Rect. for Deafness, sent by my Lady Moncastell. "Doctor Ratcliff's prescription for a noisse in the head and deffness, proceeding from a cold moyst humor in the head. "Take a pint of sack whay, make very clear, halfe sack and halfe water, boyle in it sum plain reael sage, and a sprige of Rossmery; take it gowing to rest, with thirty or forty drops of spirit of hartshorn, continue it as long as you find benifet by it, expectly the wintor seson; he may swetn or not with sirop of Cowslep. He orderd allsoe a spice capp: to be made of clowes, masse, and pepper mingled finely, pownded and put betwen too silke, and quelted to wear next the head, and for a man to be sowdd within side his wigg." This characteristic story is given on the authority of the father of my friend, Mr. M. Weld Hartstonge. Alderman George Faulkner of Dublin, the well-known bookseller, happening one day to dine in company with Dr. Leland the historian, the conversation adverted to the illustrious Dean of St. Patrick's. Faulkner, who was the Dean's printer and publisher on many occasions, mentioned, that one day being detained late at the Deanery-house, in correcting some proof-sheets for the press, Swift made the worthy alderman stay to dinner. Amongst other vegetables, asparagus formed one of the dishes. The Dean helped his guest, who shortly again called upon his host to be helped a second time; when the Dean, pointing to the alderman's plate, "Sir, first finish what you have upon your plate."-"What, sir, eat my stalks?"—"Ay, sir! King William always eat the stalks!"" And George," rejoined the his Other advantages of a more solid nature were, however, held out to his ambition; and he was led to hope that he would be provided for in the church, to which profession he was destined, as well by inclination as by so fair a prospect of preferment.* The high trust reposed in him warranted these hopes. For he was employed by Sir William Temple to lay before King William the reasons why his Majesty ought to assent to the bill for triennial parliaments; and he strengthened Temple's opinion by several arguments drawn from English history. But the King persevered in his opposition, and the bill was thrown out by the influence of the. Crown, in the House of Commons. This was the first intercourse that Swift had with courts; and he was wont to tell his friends that it helped to cure him of vanity: having probably anticipated success in his negotiation, and being mortified in proportion by its unexpected failure. In 1692, Swift went to Oxford for the purpose of taking his master's degree, to which he was admitted on the 5th July in that year. He seems to have been pleased with the civilities he met at Oxford, and observes, that he was ashamed to have been more obliged, in a few weeks, to strangers, than ever he was, in seven years, to Dublin college. The favour of Oxford necessarily implies learning and genius. In the former. Swift was now eminent, and in the latter showed the fair promise of an active and enterprising mind. Even torian, (who was himself remarkably proud, and very pompous,) "what, were you blockhead enough to obey him?"—"Yes, doctor, and if you had dined with Dean Swift, tele-a-tete, faith, you would have been obliged to eat your stalks too!" He writes to his uncle, William Swift, 29th November 1692, "I am not to take orders till the King gives me a prebend." See his Works, Vol. XV. p. 257. The passage reminds us of a similar expression in Dryden's prologue to the University of Oxford. Oxford to him a dearer name shall be Than his own mother university; Thebes did his green unknowing youth engage, He chooses Athens in his riper age. Both poets had received some censure from their Alma Mater. in 1691, he informs his friend, Mr. Kendal, that he had "written, and burned, and written again upon all manner of subjects, more than perhaps any man in England."* Amidst these miscellaneous efforts, poetry was not neglected. The muses met him on their own sacred ground, and it is at Oxford that Swift produced his first verses, (reserving only his claim to any of those contained in the Tripos of Jones.) It is a version of Horace, Book II. Ode 18,† which will be found in its place: 'Tis true, my cottage, mean and low, Nor ceilings rough with gold displays. No cedar beams for pomp and state, Not dropt an accidental heir To some old kinless miser's means; Rich purple vests, and sweeping trains; But virtue and a little sense, Have so endear'd me to the great, Blest in my little Sabine field, From day to day, with equal pace, Yet you, amused with airy dreams, *Swift's Works, Vol. XV. p. 252. These verses were copied by Dr. Hill of Dublin, from the original in the possession of Mr. Worrall, who was one of the Dean's curates, and lived in great habits of friendship with him. |