con's orders, and a small cure in the country, but has a sword at his tail here in town. 'Tis a poor, little, short, wretch, but will do best in a gown; and we will make Lord Keeper give him a living.'

This passage Mr. SHERIDAN has quoted as a proof of SWIFT's 'good offices to men of genius and merit:' but of what value in any man's character is such patronage, when over-balanced by the insult offered to religion, and to the church, whose dignity he professed to support, by making the Lord Keeper give a living to a poor, little, short wretch,' whose only merit was that of writing a poem which has never since been heard of. Connected with this anecdote, and in a subsequent part of the Life, we have another instance of the difficulty Mr. SHERIDAN experienced in his attempt to construct a Christian Hero from the materials of an inconsistent HUMOURIST. Although SWIFT professed to make the Lord Keeper give livings to persons whom he could not mention without contempt, his biographer informs us that he was more circumspect in matters within his own gift. He was extremely exact and conscientious in promoting the members of the choir according to their merit, and never advanced any person to a vicarage, who was not qualified for it in all respects, whatever their interests or however recommended. He once refused a vicarage to a person for whom Lady CARTERET was very importunate, at the same

time declaring to her ladyship, that if it had been in his power to have made the gentleman a Dean or a Bishop, he would have obliged her willingly, because, he said, deaneries and bishopricks were preferments in which merit had no concern, but the merit of a vicar would be brought to the test every day'. The instance he brings to illustrate this part of SWIFT's character, and to prove how exact and conscientious he was to fill his choir with such merit as all men were judges of, is that of a person promoted by him to a vicarage, because his gun had gone off accidentally and wounded

him.

In his attempt to develope SWIFT's mysterious conduct, towards STELLA and VANESSA,' he has certainly removed much of the mystery, but leaves SWIFT's character as liable to censure as he found it. When.

he allows that he had a love for VANESSA, and none for STELLA, and that he kept up a correspondence with VANESSA, which it was necessary to conceal from STELLA, he places his hero in a situation more irreconcileable with honour and humanity than perhaps he intended; and although his account of the whole transaction is minute and interesting, it may be doubted whether it was ever read without feelings of a very different kind from what he meant to excite. Dr. JOHNSON has noticed the affair with more lenity; he has said all that can be said in excuse.

Mr. SHERIDAN's defence of the Fourth part of GULLIVER's Travels' is ingenious; but when he censures the opposition to this work as prejudice, he forgets that it is not the prejudice of the vulgar, but the opinion of every writer of piety or taste who has considered the subject. With respect to his attack on Dr. JOHNSON, except where he has corrected some mistakes in point of fact, it may safely be left unanswered. In this he was too obviously imitating one of the virtues of his idol. He was taking that vengeance for which he had long prepared his mind. As a critic, Mr. SHERIDAN has not always been successful. SWIFT's style was, beyond all precedent, pure, and precise, yet void of ornament or grace, and partook in some instances of the pride and dogmatism of its author: nor does his Biographer seem to be aware, that his most incorrect composition is his Proposal for correcting the English tongue.'

Those who wish to appreciate SWIFT's character with justice, must derive their information from his voluminous writings, which undoubtedly place him among the most illustrious ornaments of literature, as an author of incomparable ability, of multiform talent, and inexhaustible fancy. But the most charitable conclusion that can be formed of his private life, or the general tendency of his writings, will not, I fear, differ much from the opinion of a celebrated

writer, who, with the truest relish for wit and humour, never loses sight of more important considerations.

of mind very

6 In Swift we see a turn of mind different from that of the amiable Thomson, little relish for the sublime and beautiful, and a perpetual succession of violent emotions. All his pictures of life seem to show, that deformity and meanness were the favourite objects of his attention, and that his soul was a constant prey to indignation, disgust, and other gloomy passions, arising from such a view of things. And it is the tendency of almost all his writings (though it was not always the author's design), to communicate the same passions to his reader; insomuch, that, notwithstanding his erudition, and knowledge of the world, his abilities as a popular orator and man of business, the energy of his style, the elegance of some of his verses, and his extraordinary talents in wit and humour, there is reason. to doubt, whether by studying his works any person was ever much improved in piety or benevolence *.'

The next contributor to the TATLER whom we shall notice, is Mr. JOHN HUGHES, who is said to have been the author of the letter signed Josiah Couplet in No. 64; that signed Will Trusty in No. 73; a letter on the tendency of the work in No. 76; and the in

* Essays on Poetry and Music, p. 387, 4to. Edit. 1776.

ventory of a beau's effects in No. 113. For these assignments we have the authority of Mr. Duncombe. The Annotators on the Tatler suspect that he wrote the short letter signed Philanthropos in No. 66, and the whole of No. 194, a transposition of the tenth canto of the fourth book of Spenser. STEELE is supposed to have alluded to HUGHES in the character of Aletheus in No. 56, ' He was,' say the Annotators on the Tatler, the intimate friend of STEELE, and seems to have interested himself very particularly in those papers of this work which were written with a view to detect and expose the sharpers of that time.' Some farther notice will be taken of Mr. HUGHES among the authors of the SPECTATOR.

The Medicine, a Tale,' in No. 2, was written by Mr. WILLIAM HARRISON, a young gentleman high in esteem, and (as SWIFT characterises him) a little pretty fellow, with a great deal of wit, good sense, and good nature.' For these, and perhaps superior qualities, he has been praised, wept, and honoured,' by YOUNG in his Epistle to Lord LANSDOWNE.

Mr. HARRISON received the early rudiments of his education at Winchester School, and was afterwards fellow of New College, Oxon. His circumstances were very indifferent, as he had no other income than forty pounds a year when tutor to one of the Duke of QUEENSBERRY's sons. In this employment