indigent merit. Nothing more indeed could be inferred from the terms of his letter to Lord Orrery, printed in Mrs. Barber's book, as preliminary to her dedication to that nobleman. Nor was it to be thought that he would have expressed himself in terms of such exaggeration to Queen Caroline, while he was writing his real opinion to the public in a tone of decent moderation. But in this exculpation, he resumed all his former causes of displeasure against the queen and Mrs. Howard, (now Countess of Suffolk,) particularly his being advised by the latter to remain in London after the death of George I. when he designed to have visited the continent; nor did he forget the unrequited present of Irish silk, nor her majesty's omitting to send the promised medals. Lady Suffolk returned a good-humoured answer, and Lady Betty Germaine afterwards undertook, with great spirit, the defence of her friend. But the idea of her insincerity was too deeply impressed upon the Dean's mind; all future correspondence was dropped between them; and the breach became irreconcilable between Swift and the court.

The reader may be disposed to ask, who could have taken it upon them to forge letters addressed to the queen by such a person? The only letter preserved is in a large female hand, bearing no resemblance whatever to that of the Dean, any more than the outrageous compliments to Mrs. Barber correspond with his taste or style, who, even in praising his dearest friends, usually conveyed his eulogy under a mask of irony, and whose taste was too just to bestow such extravagant commendations on verses which scarce reach mediocrity. It is therefore probable they were forged by Mrs. Barber, or some of her friends; which is the more likely, as scandal imputed to her an intrigue with an Irish literary character of some distinction. The Pilkingtons, husband and wife, were also acquainted with the poetess, and either of them were capable, from talents and disposition, to have committed such an imposture, and knew enough of the Dean's style to execute such a clumsy imitation as that letter exhibits. There is some reason to think Mrs. Barber became alarmed at the

probable consequence of these letters, and dreaded the queen's resentment. Indeed, the vexation that Swift was to experience from these unworthy Pilkingtons did not terminate here, and it may be as well to conclude the subject at once.

Swift readily abandoned the profits of his publications to those whom he meant to favour, and, in his regard for Mrs. Barber, he permitted her to sell, for her own benefit, the "Verses to a Lady, who desired to be addressed in the heroic style." She conveyed them to the press through the medium of the notorious Pilkington. Some passages awakened the wrath of Walpole, who, though generally indifferent to satire, seems to have feared that of the Dean, and caught at the opportunity of making his publishers an example. Pilkington betrayed both Barber the printer and Motte the bookseller; and they were subjected to repeated examinations before the privy-council. But as neither judged it necessary to be punctual in recollecting any circumstances which could be prejudicial to themselves, they were discharged without any punishment.* Indeed, according to our modern ideas of libels, we search the poem in vain for any passage upon which such a charge could be grounded. But it is possible that it does not now appear in its original state, nor has the editor ever seen the first edition. Swift's eyes were now opened to the infamy of the Pilkingtons, which he expressed strongly in a letter to his old friend, Alderman Barber.† For Mrs. Barber, however, he retained his regard, and at her request, so late as 1736, bestowed upon her the manuscript of his "Essay on Polite Conversation," a set of dialogues which he had compiled thirty years before, for the purpose of exposing the quaint and triti

* See Motte's account of the matter in a letter to the Dean, 31st July 1735, Swift's Works, Vol. XVIII. p. 353.

"I confess that Dr. Delany, the most eminent preacher we have, is a very unlucky recommender, for he forced me to couatenance Pilkington; introduced him to me, and praised the wit, virtue, and humour of him and his wife, whereas he proved the falsest rogue, and she the most profligate whore, in either kingdom." Swift's Works, Vol. XIX. p. 125.

It seems to be the same with the Essay on Conversation, which he designed for publication in 1710.

cal smartnesses which good spirits and gaiety of temper pass off in certain circles for wit and brilliancy. At the same time it must be owned, that, in the editor's apprehension at least, the Dean's native humour has predominated over his desire to ridicule the conversation of the times, for those who frequent society must often have partaken in dialogues much more tiresome than those of Miss Notable and Tom Neverout. The predominance of proverbs in these dialogues must certainly have been rather owing to the Dean's peculiar humour, than to any custom or fashion of the time.

The occasional poems which the Dean published about this time, were numerous and of various kinds. Some were satirical, and such were almost universally given to the public anonymously by means of the hawkers. Under this description fall the various political poems already mentioned; and such as we have still to allude to, the attacks upon Lord Allen and Tighe, published in the Intelligencer, or in single sheets or broadsides, as they are generally termed, which were consigned to the hawkers. These may be classed with his political satires in prose, since the Dean seldom was offended to the extent of making a public assault upon his adversary, without attacking him at once with both weapons, of prose and verse.

There was another class of fugitive pieces in which the Dean neglected both the decency due to his station as a clergyman and a gentleman, and his credit as a man of literature. These were poems of a coarse and indelicate character, where his imagination dwelt upon. filthy and disgusting subjects, and his ready talents were employed to embody its impurities in humorous and familiar verse. The best apology for this unfortunate perversion of taste, indulgence of caprice, and abuse of talent, is the habits of the times, and situation of the author. In the former respect, we should do great injustice to the present day, by comparing_our manners with those of the reign of George I. The writings even of the most esteemed poets of that period, contain passages which, in modern times, would be accounted to deserve the pillory. Nor was the tone

of conversation more pure than that of composition; for the taint of Charles II.'s reign continued to infect society until the present reign, when, if not more moral, we have become at least more decent than our fathers:* and although Swift's offences of this description certainly far exceeded those of contemporary authors, the peculiarities of his habits and state of mind are also to be received in extenuation of his grossness. This unfortunate propensity seems nearly allied to the misanthropy which was a precursor of his mental derangement; and notwithstanding the talent employed upon those coarse subjects, "The Lady's Dressing-Room,"—" Cassinus and Peter,"-" Chloe," and other poems of that class, are to be ranked with the description of the Yahoos, as the marks of an incipient disorder of the mind, which induced the author to dwell upon degrading and disgusting subjects, from which all men, in possession of healthful taste and sound faculties, turn with abhorrence. If it be true, as alleged by Delany, that this propensity only distinguished the latter years of Swift's life, it may be more readily accounted for from this cause,

The Editor was told by his late regretted friend, Mr. John Kemble, that there existed a distinct oral tradition of a conversation having passed between a lady of high rank seated in a box in the theatre, and Mr. Congreve, the celebrated dramatist, who was placed at some distance; which is so little fit for these pages, that a rake of common outward decency would hardly employ such language in a brothel. Indeed, it is only necessary to refer to the ordinary novels by which our ancestors were amused, to estimate the improvement of public delicacy. The Editor was acquainted with an old lady of family, who assured him that, in her younger days, Mrs. Behn's novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss Edgeworth at present; and described with some humour her own surprise, when, the book falling into her hands after a long interval of years, and when its contents were quite forgotten, she found it altogether impossible to endure, at the age of fourscore, what at fifteen she, like all the fashionable world of the time, had perused without an idea of impropriety.

+ So says Delany, and adds, that he had heard the Dean rebuke Stella with great asperity for using a coarse allusion in society. His delicacy, however, must have been only occasional and capricious, for the Journal furnishes many instances how little it influenced his own correspondence with females. As to Delany's charge against Pope, I suspect it arose from personal pique.

than by supposing that Swift acquired from Pope a habit of thinking and writing, in which he far exceeded Pope himself. Indeed, as he used to call upon Pope to admire Rabelais more than the Bard of Twickenham was disposed to do, it may be urged with probability, that Swift rather led the way than received lessons in the coarseness so rankly practised by the witty Frenchman.* It may be lastly remembered, that neither in this nor other cases, (unless when he had some particular point in view,) did the Dean write with a view to publication. He produced and read his poems to the little circle of friends, where he presided as absolute dictator, where all applauded the manner, and none, it may be presumed, ventured to criticise the subject. Copies were requested, and frequently granted. If refused, the auditors contrived to write down from memory an imperfect version. These, in the usual course of things, were again copied repeatedly, until at length they fell into the hands of some hackney author or bookseller, who, for profit, or to affront the author, or with both views, gave them to the public. It would seem that, even to Pope himself, Swift refused an explicit acknowledgment of his having written them.†

The verses of society, to borrow a phrase from the French, those light passages of humour which were written merely for the circle in which Swift lived at the time, have been already noticed. Besides the constant war of jest and gibe and whimsical eccentricity which was kept up between the Dean and Sheridan, he had now formed an intimacy with Sir Arthur Acheson and his lady, which gave occasion to some of his most distinguished productions of this kind. At their seat of

Spence's Anecdotes by Singers, p. 141.

It is supposed the following postscript of a letter from Pope, 6th January 1733-4, refers to some curiosity which Mrs. Martha Blount had expressed on the subject of some of these indelicate poems: "I am just now told, a very curious lady intends to write to you, to pump you about some poems said to be yours. Pray tell her, that you have not answered me on the same questions, and that I shall take it as a thing never to be forgiven from you, if you tell another what you have concealed from me." Swift's Works, Vol. XVIII. p. 191.