few years abfence, and fome newly discovered faults, made him wish to put an end to a correfpondence in the style of courtship, which had been carried on for fome time with Mifs Waryng. The circumftances of that affair are laid open in an unlover-like and dictatorial epistle to Miss Waryng, dated May 4. 1700, the defign of which feems evidently to have been to break off the match, but in such a way as that the refusal might come from the lady. The fubfequent fortunes of Mifs Waryng are not known; but it is probable Swift's connection with her might occasion the mysterious conduct he obferved towards Mifs Johnson.

Ambition, not love, was his predominant paffion. Urged by this restless spirit, he every year paid a visit to England, in hopes of finding fome favourable opportunity of diftinguishing himself, and pufhing his fortune in the world.

His first political tract, intituled A Difcourfe of the Contests and Diffentions in Athens and Rome, was published in 1701, at the time when the nation was in a ferment on account of the impeachment of the Earls of Portland and Orford, Lord Somers and Lord Halifax, by the House of Commons. He concealed his name; nor was he, though he sided with the Whigs, at that time connected with any of the leaders of that party. His motives were wholly of a public nature, and such as became his truly difinterested and patriotic fpirit. This was the only piece he ever explicitly avowed as his own production. With respect to all his other publications, to which he did not affix his name, he left the world to make its own conjectures with regard to the author. He maintained a kind of dignified reserve, and seemed always to court that equivocal shade which "half showed,” and “ half veiled" his intentions and pursuits.

The fame year, he took the degree of Doctor in Divinity.

In 1704, he published, The Tale of a Tub, which he had kept by him eight years. Mr. Sheridan confiders it as a work truly friendly to the interests of religion, by weakening of the powers of popery and fanaticism; but, it is certain, that most of the serious part of the clergy and the laity, even among the high-church-men, blushed for the author, and thought religion the last thing he troubled himself about. It has been afcribed by Mr. Cookfey, in his "Life of Lord Somers," to that nobleman; but he himself did not deny that he was the author, when Archbishop Sharp and the Duchefs of Somerset, by showing it to the Queen, debarred him from a bishopric.

After the publication of this work, his acquaintance was much fought after by all perfons of taste. and genius. There was, particularly, a very clofe connection between him and Addifon, which ended in a fincere and lasting friendship; and he lived in the greatest intimacy with Congreve, Arbuthnot, Prior, Pope, Gay, Parnell, Garth, Berkeley, and others of inferior note.

In 1708, he published The Sentiments of a Church-of-England Man, the ridicule of astrology, under the name of Bickerstaff, the Argument against abolishing Chriflianity, and the defence of the Sacramental Tet.

In these publications Swift does not rife fuperior to the prejudices which agitated the contending parties of those days. His principles of toleration may be clearly perceived to have been inimical to a general liberty of confcience. He speaks the language of those days, when bigotry, under the fpecious names of zeal and orthodoxy, shook the very pillars of the Reformation; and, while it pretended to fecure the church from danger, was undermining the best interests of truth, religion, and liberty.

The attention paid to the paper published under the name of Bickerstaff, induced Steele, when he projected the “ Tatler," to affume an appellation which had already gained poffeffion of the reader's notice.

In 1709, he published a Project for the advancement of Religion, addressed to Lady Berkeley, by whofe kindness it is not unlikely that he was advanced to his benefices, but chiefly calculated for the Queen's perufal, being covertly aimed at the destruction of the Whigs or Low-church-party. After the publication of this piece, Swift went to Ireland, where he paffed much of his time with Addison, then Secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of that kingdom.

Upon the change of affairs at court the following year, when the Tory miniftry was appointed, Swift was employed by the bishops of Ireland to folicit the Queen for a remiffion of the first-fruits and twentieth-parts to the Irish clergy.

He arrived in London, with his credentials, in September 1710, and waited upon Harley, t● ́

whom he was mentioned as a man neglected and oppressed by the last ministry, because he had refufed to co-operate with fome of their schemes.

Harley was glad of an auxiliary fo well qualified for his fervice, and readily admitted him to familiarity and his entire confidence.

He was admitted to thofe meetings in which the first hints and original plan of action are supposed to have been formed; and was one of the fixteen minifters, or agents of the ministry, who'met weekly at each other's houfes, and were united by the name of "Brother."

He continued, however, to converfe indifcriminately with all the wits, and was yet a friend to Steele, and contributed to the "Tatler," which began in April, 1709.

At this time, and during his connection with the Tory ministry, he kept a regulär journal of all the mot remarkable events, as well as little anecdotes, which he tranfmitted every fortnight to Stella, the name by which he called Mifs Johnson, for private perufal, and that of Mrs. Dingley. This journal was luckily preferved, and fome time fince given to the world.

He was now immerging into political controverfy. The writers on both fides had before this taken the field. On the Whig fide were Addifon, Burnet, Steele, Congreve, Rowe, and many others of lefs note. On the Tory fide, the chief writers were Bolingbroke, Atterbury, Prior, Freind and King, They had published twelve numbers of a weekly paper, called The Examiner, when Swift declared himself. The whole conduct of the paper was, from that time, put into his hands. He entered the field alone; he fcorned affiftance; and defpifed numbers. His firft paper was published November 2. 1710, No. 13. of The Examiner; and he continued them without interruption till June 7. 1711, when he dropped it, clofing it with No. 44, and then leaving it to be carried on by Mrs. Manley, and other hands.

In 1711, he published a Letter to the October Club, " a fet of above a hundred parliament-men of the country, who drank October beer at home, and met every evening at a tavern near the parliament to confult on affairs, and drive things to extremes against the Whigs; to call the old ministry to account, and get off five or fix heads." Swift seems to have concurred in opinion with the violent members of his own party; but it was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he ftimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. His Letter, however, put an end to the cabals of the October Club.

The next year, he published a propofal for correcting, improving, and afcertaining the English Tongue, in a letter to Harley; " written," fays Dr. Johnson, " without much knowledge of the general nature of language, and without any accurate inquiry into the history of other tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience, he thinks attainable, he proposes to fecure by inftituting an academy, the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud to difobey; and which, being renewed by fucceffive elections, would in a fhort time have differed from itself."

The fame year, he published his celebrated political tract, called The Conduct of the Allies. The purpose was to perfuade the nation to a peace; and never had any publication more fuccefs. It is faid that eleven thoufand were fold in less than a month. To its propagation certainly no agency of power or influence was wanting. It furnished arguments for conversation, speeches for debate, and materials for parliamentary refolutions.

It was followed by his Barrier Treaty, which carries on the defign of the Conduct of the Allies, and his Remarks on the Bishop of Sarum's Introduction to the third Volume of his Hiftory of the Reformation, in which he treats Burnet like a political antagonist, whom he is glad of an opportunity to infult.

The ministry were not unmindful of his merits, and had recommended him to the Queen to fill a vacant bishopric; but the recommendation was opposed by Archbishop Sharp, who used this remarkable expreflion, “that her Majefty fhould be fure that the man whom she was going to make a bishop was a Chriftian." The Duchefs of Somerset alfo fhowed the Queen that exceffive bitter copy of verfes which Swift had written against her, called The Windfor Prophecy. As a mark of her displeasure, the Queen paffed Swift by, and bestowed the bishopric on another.

As foon as it was known that he was in difgrace with the Queen, his court friends either deferted him or looked coldly on him. Speeches were made against him in both Houfes of Parliament. The Scottish Peers went in a body to the Queen to complain of the author of a pamphlet, called the

Pallic Spirit of the Whigs, written in answer to Steele's "Crifis," in which were many paffages injurious to the honour of their nation.

His friend Harley, however, and the rest of the ministry, exerted their influence so strongly in his behalf, that he foon appeared again at court, in higher favour than ever.

In April 1713, he was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin, the best preferment the ministry would venture to give him. "That ministry," fays Dr. Johnson, "was, in a great degree, fupported by the clergy, who were not yet reconciled to the author of the Tale of a Tub, and would not, without much discontent and indignation, have borne to fee him installed in an English cathedral."

In June following, he went to take poffeffion of his deanery; but was not fuffered to stay in Ireland more than a fortnight before he was recalled to England, that he might reconcile Harley and Bolingbroke, who began to look on one another with malevolence, which every day increased.

Upon his arrival, he contrived an interview at Lord Mafham's, from which they both departed difcontented; he procured a fecond, which only convinced him that the breach was irreconcilable. He told them his opinion, that all was loft, and that he was determined to have no further concern with public affairs.

By the diffenfion of his great friends, his importance was now at an end; and feeing his fervices at last useless, he returned in June 1714, to a friend's house at Letcomb in Berkshire, where he wrote that fpirited pamphlet, called Free Thoughts on the prefent State of Affairs; but the death of the Queen, foon after it went to prefs, put a stop to the publication.

This event broke down at once the whole fyftem of Tory politics, put an end to all Swift's noble defigns for the public good, and cut off all his own future profpects.

There is an admirable picture given of him upon this occafion, by a few strokes of the masterly pen of Arbuthnot: "I have feen a letter," he writes Pope, " from Dean Swift; he keeps up his noble fpirit; and though, like a man knocked down, you may behold him ftill with a ftern countenance, and aiming a blow at his adversaries."

The brightest and most important part of his life paffed during the four laft years of Queen Anne, when his faculties were in full vigour, and occafions for displaying them arose adequate to their greatnefs.

It is recorded to his honour, and to animate others by his example, that, during his connection with those who were in the highest rank, and who in every rank would have been great, he would never fuffer himself to be treated but as an equal, and repulfed every attempt to hold him in dependence, or keep him at diftance, with the utmost refentment and indignation.

It happened upon fome occafion that Harley fent him a bank bill of 501. by his private secretary, Mr. Lewis, which he inftantly returned with a letter of expoftulation and complaint; but he accepted afterwards a draught of 1000 1. upon the Exchequer, which was intercepted by the Queen's death.

When he was defired by Harley to introduce Parnell to his acquaintance, he refused, upon this principle, that a man of genius was a character fuperior to a lord in a high ftation. He therefore obliged him to walk with his treasurer's staff from room to room, inquiring which was Parnell, in order to introduce himself, and beg the honour of his acquaintance.

As to his political principles, if his own account of them is to be believed, he was alway's against a popish fucceffor to the crown, whatever title he might have by proximity of blood; nor did he regard the right line upon any other account than as it was established by law, and had much weight in the opinions of the people. He was of opinion, that when the grievances fuffered under a present government became greater than thofe which might probably be expected from changing it by violence, a revolution was justifiable; and this he believed to have been the cafe in that which was brought about by the Prince of Orange. He had a mortal antipathy to standing armies in times of peace; and was of opinion, that our liberty could never be fecured upon a firm foundation, till the ancient law fhould be revived, by which our parliaments were made annual. He abominated the political scheme of fetting up a monied interest in oppofition to the landed, and was an enemy to a temporary fufpenfion of the Habeas Corpus act. In thefe opinions, and in his general scheme of politics, Harley was known to concur; but Bolingbroke fought to gratify his ambition by fecretly promoting the restoration of the exiled family.

The period of his political importance is distinguished by the commencement of his paffion for Miss Esther Vanhomrigh, celebrated by the name of Vanea, whofe hiftory is too well known to be minutely repeated.

The date of it may be traced to March 1712, when a remarkable change took place in his manner of writing to Mifs Johnson.

Mifs Vanhomrigh was a young woman fond of literature, whom he took pleasure in directing and inftructing; till, from being proud of his praife, fhe grew fond of his perfon, and ventured to make him a propofal of marriage.

He now, for the first time, felt what the paffion of love was, with all its attendant symptoms, which he had before only known from defcription, and which he was now enabled to defcribe himfelf in the strongest colours. In this fituation, foon after his return from his inftallation, in 1713, he wrote that beautiful poem, called Cadenus and Vanea, in which he is characterised, under the name of Cadenus by the tranfpofition of the letters in the word Decanus, the Dean. His first design feems to have been to break off the connection in the politeft manner poffible. To foften the harshnefs of a refufal of her hand, the greatest of mortifications to a woman, young, beautiful, and poffeffed of a good fortune; he painted all her perfections, both of body and mind, in fuch glowing colours, as must at least have highly gratified her vanity, and shown that he was far from being infenfible to her charms, though prudence forbade his yielding to his inclinations. If it be said that he fhould have checked a paffion which he never meant to gratify, recourse must be had to that extenuation which he fo much despised, " men are but men." Perhaps, however, he did not know his own mind; and, as he represents himself, was undetermined.

A poem written in fuch exquisite tafte, of which she was the fubject, and where she saw herself dreft out in the most flattering colours, was not likely to administer to her cure; on the contrary, it only ferved to add fresh fuel to the flame.

Meantime, the unfortunate Stella languished in abfence and neglect. The journal was not renewed; while a continual intercourfe was kept up between lanefa and him. She was the first perfon he wrote to on his retirement to Letcoumb, before the Queen's death, and the last in his departure from that place to Ireland; whether the foon followed.

He arrived in a much more gloomy ftate of mind than before. In the triumph of the Whigs, he met with every mortification that a spirit like his could poffibly be exposed to. The people of Ireland were irritated againft him beyond measure, and every indignity was offered him as he walked the streets of Dublin. Nor was he only infulted by the rabble; but perfons of diftinguished rank forgot the decorum of common civility, to give him a personal affront. While his pride was hurt by fuch indignities, his more tender feelings were often wounded by bafe ingratitude.

In such a situation, he found it in vain to struggle against the tide that opposed him. He filently yielded, and retired from the world to discharge his duties as a clergyman, and attend to the care of his deanery.

He filled his hours with fome hiftorical attempts relating to the Change of the Miniftry, and the Conduct of the Miniflry. He likewife finished a Hiftory of the Four laft Years of Queen Anne, which he began in her lifetime, and laboured with great attention, but never published. It was afterwards published by Dr. Lucas; but failed to fatisfy the curiofity which it excited.

He was now to contrive how he might be beft accommodated in a country where he confidered himself in a fate of exile. He opened his houfe by a public table two days a-week, and found his entertainments gradually frequented by visitants of learning among the men, and of elegance among the women. Mifs Johnfon had left the country, and lived in lodgings not far from the deanery. On his public days she regulated the table; but appeared at it as a mere gueft, like other ladies. On other days, he often dined at a flated price, with Mr. Worral, a clergyman of his cathedral, whofe houfe was recommended by the peculiar neatness and pleasantry of his wife. To this frugal mode of living, he was firft difpofed by care to pay fome debts which he had contracted; and he continued it for the purpose of accumulating money.

In 1716, he was privately married to Mifs Johnfon, by Dr. Afhe, bishop of Clogher, to whom he had been a pupil in the College, and who was the common friend to both, in fettling the conditions of this extraordinary union. The marriage made no change in their mode of life; they lived in feparate houses as before; nor did fhe ever lodge in the deanery but when Swift was feized with a fit of giddinefs.

During almost fix years after his return to Ireland, he kept his refolution of not meddling at all with public affairs. In 1720, when the ferment seemed to have fubfided, he published his first political pamphlet relative to Ireland, intituled, A Proposal for the univerfal Ufe of Irifb Manufactures. The effect of this tract is well known. It roused the indignation of the ministry: a prosecution against the printer was commenced, though it came to nothing in the end. Swift again withdrew into retirement; and "there," as Mr. Sheridan expreffes it, by repeating his former allufion, «his patriotic fpirit, thus confined, proved only as an evil one to torment him."

His patriotism burst forth with a vehemence still more powerful;and effective, in 1724, to obstruct the currency of Wood's halfpence, in the affumed character of a Drapier.

His zeal was recompenfed with fuccefs; and he was, in confequence of it, acclaimed the great patriot of Ireland.

After his marriage to Miss Johnson, he continued his fecret intercourse and correspondence with Mifs Vanhomrigh; and even indulged her hopes, by the most explicit confeffion of his paffion for her. After fuch a confeffion, the concluded, that fome reports which had reached her of his being married to Mifs Johnson was the real obstacle to their union. To put an end to all further fufpence, the fent a fhort note to Mifs Johnson, requesting to know whether she was married to Swift or not. Mifs Johnson answered her in the affirmative, and then enclosed the note she had received from her to Swift, and immediately went into the country, without seeing him.

Her abrupt departure showed him what paffed in her mind. In the first transports of his paffion, he immediately rode to Celbridge, Mifs Vanhomrigh's country feat. He entered the apartment where the unhappy lady was, and flung a paper on the table, mute, but with a countenance that fpoke the highest resentment, and immediately returned to his horfe. She found it contained nothing but her note to Miss Johnson. Despair at once feized her, as if she had seen her death warrant ; and fuch indeed it proved to be. The violent agitation of her mind threw her into a fever, which, in a fhort time, put a period to her exiftence. Before her death, which happened in 1723, fhe had cancelled a will made in favour of Swift, and bequeathed her whole fortune to her relation Serjeant Marshall, and the famous Dr. Berkeley, with a strong injunction, that, immediately after her decease, they should publish all the letters which passed between Swift and her, together with the poem of Cadenus and Vanessa. The poem was published, but the letters, at the defire of Dr. Sheridan, were suppressed.

Swift made a tour to the fouth of Ireland for about two months at this time, to diffipate his thoughts, and give place to obloquy; during which Mifs Johnson remained in the country; nor did the quit it for fome months after his return. However, upon her return to Dublin, a reconciliation foon took place. He welcomed her to town with a beautiful poem, called Stella at Wood-Park, which concludes with a high compliment to Stella:

For though my raillery were true,

A cottage is Wood-Park with you.

Early in 1726, he revisited England, after an absence of twelve years; and collected three volumes ♦f Mif.ellanies, in conjunction with Pope, who prefixed the preface, and had the whole profit, which was very confiderable.

The fame year, he published Gulliver's Travels, a production that was received with such avidity, that the price of the first edition was raised before the fecond could be made. It was read by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for a while loft in wonder; no rules of judgment were applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and regularity. But when diftinctions came to be made, the part which gave least pleasure was that which describes the FlyTag and, and that which gave moft disgust must be the hiftory of the Houybnmns. The charge of mifanthropy is founded on his fuppofed fatire on human nature, in the picture he has drawn of the Tabour. The ground of this cenfure is examined very minutely by Mr. Sheridan, and his defence is conducted with great judgment and ingenuity. This part of his writings reflects neither honour for reproach on his moral character.

While Swift was paffing his time with his friends Pope and Bolingbroke, and the old fraternity, he received accounts that Mifs Johnfon was dangerously ill. This call of calamity hastened him to Ireland, where he had the fatisfaction to find her restored to an imperfect and tottering health,