her comfortable support, amid the ruin in which that imprudence had involved her.* Having now taken leave of Lord Berkeley's family, at least as resident chaplain, Swift, in the year 1700, took possession of his living at Laracor, and resumed the habits of a country clergyman. He is said to have walked down, incognito, to the place of his future residence; and tradition has recorded various anecdotest These particulars concerning Fenton are on the authority of Mr. Theophilus Swift. † Among these may be reckoned the doggerel lines, in which he is said to have commemorated various towns and villages through which he passed in his way to Laracor. Dublin for a city, Dunshaghlin for a plow, Cavan for dirt, and Belturbet for a whore. SWIFTIANA. Swift was very much addicted to this sort of proverb-making, as it may be called. In the following couplet on Carlow, I understand the first line is highly descriptive; but that the town and inhabitants do not now merit the reproach contained in the second: High church and low steeple, Dirty town and proud people. Many instances of this humour may be observed in the Journal to Stella. Another anecdote of this journey is preserved by Mr. Wilson; "There were three inns in Navan, each of which claim, to this day, the honour of having entertained Dr. Swift. It is probable that he dined at one of them, for it is certain that he slept at Kells, in the house of Jonathan Belcher, a Leicestershire man, who had built the inn of that town on the English model, which still exists; and, in point of capaciousness and convenience, would not disgrace the first road in England. The host, whether struck by the commanding sternness of Swift's appearance, or from natural civility, showed him into the best room, and waited himself at table. The attention of Belcher seems so far to have won upon Swift as to have produced some conversation. You're an Englishman, sir?" said Swift. Yes, sir.' What is your name?' Jonathan Belcher, sir.' An Englishman, and Jonathan too, in the town of Kells,-Who would have thought it! What brought you to this country?' "I came with Sir Thomas Taylor, sir; and I believe I could reckon fifty Jonathans in my family.' Then you are a man of family?" Yes, sir; and I have four sons and three daughters by one mother, a good woman of true Irish mould.' 'Have you long been out of your native country?' Thirty years, sir.' 'Do you ever expect to of his journey. He walked straight to the curate's house, demanded his name, and announced himself bluntly as his master.' All was bustle to receive a person of such consequence, and who, apparently, was determined to make bis importance felt.* The curate's wife was ordered to lay aside the doctor's only clean shirt and stockings, which he carried in his pocket; nor did Swift relax his airs of domination until he had excited much alarm, which his subsequent kind and friendly conduct to the worthy couple, turned into respectful attachment. This was the ruling trait of Swift's conduct to others; his praise assumed the appearance and language of complaint; his benefits were often prefaced by a prologue of a threatening nature; his most grave themes were blended with ironical pleasantry, and, in those of a lighter nature, deep and bitter satire is often couched under the most trifling levity. Swift's life at Laracor was regular and clerical. He read prayers twice a-week, and regularly preached visit it again? Never.' 'Can you say that without a sigh? "I can, sir; my family is my country.' Why, sir, you are a better philosopher than those who have written volumes on the subject: Then you are reconciled to your fate?' I ought to be so; I am very happy; I like the people, and though I was not born in Ireland, I'll die in it, and that's the same thing.' Swift paused in deep thought for a minute, and then, with much energy, repeated the first line of the preamble of the noted Irish statute-Ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores! (The English settlers are more Irish than the Irish themselves.")-Swiftiana, London, 1804, Vol. I. 58. * His mode of introducing himself was often whimsical and alarming. The widow of Mr. Watson, a miniature-painter in Dublin, who, herself, followed the same profession, used to mention, that, while a girl in her father's house, (a Mr. Hoy, of the county of Wicklow,) a gentleman rode up to the door, was admitted to the parlour where the family were sitting, and held some conversation with Mr. Hoy, probably upon a literary topic, as her father left the room to seek a book referred to. During his absence, the stranger, stealing softly behind her, gave her a smart and unexpected slap on the cheek, saying, at the same time, to the astonished girl, "You will now remember Dean Swift as long as you live;" in which he prophesied very truly. Even in hiring servants, it was his custom to begin by asking them their qualifications for discharging the lowest and most mortifying offices. If they answered saucily, or expressed themselves affronted, the treaty was ended; if not, he set their submissive replies to the account of their good sense, and usually engaged them. upon the Sunday. Upon the former occasions the church was thinly attended; and it is said, that the ludicrous and irreverend anecdote of his addressing the church service to his parish clerk, occurred when he found the rest of the congregation absent upon such an occasion. The truth of the story has been, however, disputed, although the friends of Swift allow that it had much of the peculiarity of his vein of humour. The reader will find beneath, the reasoning of Mr. Theophilus Swift upon this curious anecdote, to which there can be but one objection, that Swift, namely, was more likely to do such a thing, than Orrery to invent it; and that to Swift, notwithstanding his sincere piety, a jest was irresistibly seductive. On Sundays the church at Laracor was well attended by the neighbouring families; and Swift, far from having reason to complain of want of an audience, attained that reputation which he pronounced to be the height of his ambition, since enquiries were frequently made at his faithful clerk, Roger Coxe,t whether the Doctor was to preach that Sunday. While resident at Laracor, it was Swift's principal care to repair the dilapidations which the church and vicarage had sustained, by the carelessness or avarice of "I perfectly recollect, that neither my father or Mrs. Whiteway had ever heard the story of Dearly beloved Roger,' till Orrery's book made its appearance. I have frequently heard them say So. They allowed it was possible, and not unlike the Dean; but they believed it was an invention of Orrery's, to discredit the Dean's respect for religion. They thought it very singular that such a circumstance, had it been true, should not have been known to them; especially as my father had a considerable estate near Laracor, and resided very much upon it. For myself, I give no credit to the story. I verily believe that Orrery applied a story he had found, to discredit the piety of the Dean." Mr. Swift afterwards found the same story, in the same words, in an old jest-book, printed betwixt 1655 and 1660. Roger was a man of humour, and merited a master like Swift. When the Doctor remarked that he wore a scarlet waistcoat, he defended himself as being of the church-militant. "Will you not bid for these poultry?" said Swift to his humble dependant, at a sale of farm-stock. "No, sir;" said Roger, "they're just a-going to Hatch." They were, in fact, on the point of being knocked down to a farmer called Hatch. This humourist was originally a hatter, and died at the age of 90, at Bruky, in the county of Cavan. See Swiftiana, Vol. I. p. 9, former incumbents. He expressed the utmost indigna tion at the appearance of the church; and, during the first year of his incumbency, expended a considerable sum in putting it into decent repair. The vicarage he also made comfortably tenantable,* and proceeded to improve it, according to the ideas of beauty and taste. which were at that time universally received. He formed a pleasant garden; smoothed the banks of a rivulet into a canal, and planted willows in regular ranks by its side. These willows, so often celebrated in the Journal to Stella, are now decayed or cut down; the garden cannot be traced; and the canal only resembles a ditch. Yet the parish and the rector continue to derive some advantage, from its having been once the abode of Swift. He increased the glebe from one acre to twenty. The tithes of Effernock, purchased with his own money, at a time when it did not abound, were, by his will, settled for ever on the incumbent of that living.† But Laracor had yet greater charms than its willows and canals, the facetious humours of Roger Coxe, and the applause of the gentry of the neighbourhood. Swift had no sooner found his fortune established in Ireland, than it became his wish that Stella should be an inhabitant of that kingdom. This was easily arranged. She was her own mistress, and the rate of interest being higher in Ireland, furnished her with a plausible excuse for taking up her residence near the friend and instructer of her youth. The company of Mrs. Dingley, a woman of narrow income and limited understanding, *The house appears, from its present ruins, to have been a comfortable mansion. The present Bishop of Meath, (whom the editor is proud to call his friend,) with classic feeling, while pressing upon his clergy, at a late visitation, the duty of repairing the glebe-houses, addressed himself particularly to the Vicar of Laracor, and recommended to him, in the necessary improvements of his mansion, to save as far as possible, the walls of the house which had been inhabited by his great predecessor. This was not without a touch of his peculiar humour. These tithes, by his will, are devised to his successors in the cure, so long as the Established Church lasted; and to the poor, in case it should be exchanged for any other form of the Christian religion, always excepting from the benefit thereof, Jews, Atheists, and Infidels. but of middle age, and a creditable character, obviated, in a great measure, the inferences which the world must otherwise have necessarily drawn from this step. Some whispers so singular a resolution doubtless occasioned; but the caution of Swift, who was never known to see Stella but in presence of a third party, and the constant attendance of Mrs. Dingley, to whom, apparently, he paid equal attention, seem to have put scandal to silence. Their residence was varied with the same anxious regard to Stella's character. When Swift left his parsonage at Laracor, the ladies became its tenants; and when he returned, they regularly retired to their lodgings in the town of Trim, the capital of the diocese, or were received by Dr. Raymond, so often mentioned in the Journal, the hospitable vicar of that parish. Every exterior circumstance which could distinguish an union of mere friendship from one of a more tender nature, was carefully observed, and the surprise at first excited by the settlement of Mrs. Dingley and Stella in a country to which they were strangers, seems gradually to have subsided.* It is, however, highly probable, that between Swift and Stella there was a tacit understanding that their union was to be completed by marriage, when Swift's income, according to the prudential scheme which he had unhappily adopted, should be adequate to the expense of a matrimonial establishment. And here it is impossible to avoid remarking the vanity of that over-prudence, which labours to provide against all possible contingencies. Had Swift, like any ordinary man in his situation, been contented to share his limited income with a deserving object of his affections, the task of his biographers would have been short and cheerful; and we should neither have had to record, nor apologise for, those The English acquaintances of the parties expected a different result. Mr. Thomas Swift, the Dean's "Parson-Cousin," in a letter from Puttenham, Feb. 5, 1706, asks "whether Jonathan be married? or whether he has been able to resist the charms of both these gentlewomen that marched quite from Moorpark to Dublin, (as they would have marched to the North or anywhere else,) with full reso lution to engage him?" VOL. II. 5* |