ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF SWIFT. A FRAGMENT. WRITTEN BY DR SWIFT. [The original Manuscript in his own hand is lodged in the Uni versity Library of Dublin.] TH * HE family of the Swifts was ancient in Yorkshire; from them descended a noted person, who passed under the name of Cavaliero Swift, a man of wit and humour. He was made an Irish peer by King James or King Charles the First, with the title of Baron Carlingford, but never was in that kingdom. Many traditional pleasant stories are related of him, which the family planted in Ireland has received from their parents. This lord died without issue male; and his heiress, whether of the first or second descent, was married to Robert Fielding, Esquire, commonly called Handsome Fielding; brought him a considerable estate in Yorkshire, which he squandered away, but had no children: the earl of Eglinton married another coheiress of the same family, as he has often told me. † she Barnam Swift, esq. was created viscount (not baron) of Carlingford, by King Charles I. March 20, 1627, and by his death in 1642, S. P. the title became extinct. + Scottish genealogists do not record such a marriage in the pedigree of the Eglintoun family. Another of the same family was Sir Edward Swift, well known in the times of the great rebellion and usurpation, but I am ignorant whether he left heirs or not. * Of the other branch, whereof the greatest part settled in Ireland, the founder was William Swift, prebendary of Canterbury, towards the last years of Queen Elizabeth, and during the reign of King James the First. He was a divine of some distinction. There is a sermon of his extant, and the title is to be seen in the catalogue of the Bodleian Library, but I never could get a copy, and I suppose it would now be of little value. + This William married the heiress of Philpott, I suppose a Yorkshire gentleman, by whom he got a very considerable estate, which however she kept in her own power; I know not by what artifice. She was a capricious, ill-natured, and passionate woman, of which I have been told several instances. And it has been a continual tradition in the family, that she absolutely disinherited her only son Thomas, for no greater crime than that of robbing an orchard when he was a boy. And thus much is certain, that except a church or chapter lease which was not renewed, Thomas never enjoyed more than one hundred pounds a year, which was all at Goodrich, in Herefordshire, whereof not above one half is now in the possession of a great grandson. 1 His original picture § is now in the hands of Godwin Swift of Dublin, Esq. his great grandson, as well as that of his wife, who seems to have a good deal of the shrew in her countenance; whose arms of an heiress are joined with his own; and by the last he seems to have been a person somewhat fantastick; for in these he gives as his device, a dolphin (in those days called a Swift) twisted about an anchor, with this motto, Festina lente. There is likewise a seal with the same coat of arms (his dary. William Swift was rector of St Andrew's in Canterbury, not a preben It was preached Jan. 25, 1621, at St George's, Canterbury, at the funeral of Sir Thomas Wilson, in Rom. viii. 18, and is written much in the style and manner of that age.-D. S. More probably of Kent.-D. S. Drawn in 1603, æt. 57: his wife's in the same year, æt. 54.-D. S. not joined with his wife's) which the said William commonly made use of, and this is also now in the possession of Godwin Swift above-mentioned. His eldest son Thomas seems to have been a clergyman before his father's death. He was vicar of Goodrich, in Herefordshire, within a mile or two of Ross: he had likewise another church living, with about one hundred pounds a year in land, as I have already mentioned. He built a house on his own land in the village of Goodrich, which by the architecture, denotes the builder to have been somewhat whimsical and singular, and very much toward a projector. The house is above a hundred years old, and still in good repair, inhabited by a tenant of the female line, but the landlord, a young gentleman, lives upon his own estate in Ireland. * This Thomas was distinguished by his courage, as well as his loyalty to King Charles the First, and the sufferings he underwent for that prince, more than any person of his condition in England. Some historians of those times relate several particulars of what he acted, and what hardships he underwent for the person and cause of that blessed martyred prince. He was plundered by the Roundheads sixand-thirty times, some say above fifty. He engaged his small estate, and gathered all the money he could get, quilted it in his waistcoat, got off to a town held for the king, where being asked by the governor, who knew him well, "what he could do for his majesty?" Mr Swift said, "be would give the king his coat," and stripping it off presented it to the governor; who observing it to be worth little, Mr Swift said, "then take my waistcoat :" he bid the governor weigh it in his hand, who ordering it to be ripped, found it lined with three hundred broad pieces of gold, which, as it proved a seasonable relief, must be allowed an extraordinary This house, now the property of Mr Theophilus Swift, is still standing. A vault is shewn beneath the kitchen, accessible only by raising one of the flagstones. Here were concealed the provisions of bread and milk, which sup ported the lives of the family after they had been plundered by the Parlia mentary soldiers. The vicar was in those days considered as a conjurer, especially when his neighbours, being discharged from assisting him, and all his provisions destroyed, he still continued to subsist his family. This vault is probably one of the peculiarities of architecture noticed by the Dean. supply from a private clergyman with ten children, of a small estate, so often plundered, and soon after turned out of his livings in the church. At another time, being informed that three hundred horse of the rebel party intended in a week to pass over a certain river, upon an attempt against the Cavaliers, Mr Swift, having a head mechanically turned, he contrived certain pieces of iron with three spikes, whereof one must always be with the point upward; he placed them over night in the ford, where he received notice that the rebels would pass early the next morning, which they accordingly did, and lost two hundred of their men, who were drowned or trod to death by the falling of their horses, or torn by the spikes. His sons, whereof four were settled in Ireland (driven thither by their sufferings, and by the death of their father,) related many other passages, which they learned either from their father himself, or from what had been told them by the most credible persons of Herefordshire, and some neigh bouring counties; and which some of those sons often told to their children; many of which are still remembered, but many more forgot. He was deprived of both his church livings sooner than most other loyal clergymen, upon account of his superior zeal for the king's cause, and his estate sequestered." His preferments, at least that of Goodrich, were given to a fanatical saint, who scrupled not, however, to conform upon the Restoration, and lived many years, I think till after the Revolution: I have seen many persons at Goodrich, who knew and told me his name, which I cannot now remember. The lord-treasurer Oxford told the Dean, that he had among his father's (Sir Edward Harley's) papers, several letters from Mr Thomas Swift, writ in those times, which he promised to give to the grandson, whose life I am now writ ing; but never going to his house in Herefordshire while he was treasurer, and the queen's death happening in three days after his removal, the Dean went to Ireland, and the earl being tried for his life, and dying while the Dean was in Ireland, he could never get them. It should be four.-S. * Mr Thomas Swift died in the year 1658, and in the 63d year of his age; his body lies under the altar at Goodrich, with a short inscription. He died about two years before the return of king Charles the Second, who, by the recommendation of some prelates, had promised, if ever God should restore him, that he would promote Mr Swift in the church, and otherwise reward his family, for his extraordinary services and zeal, and persecutions in the royal cause; but Mr Swift's merit died with himself. + This was erected by the Dean, and was the subject of some pleasantry between Pope and him, page 6, Note. At the same time the Dean gave a chalice to the church of Goodrich. The following note, directing how it should be conveyed thither, is copied from a fragment found among Mr Lyons' papers. It seems to have been written by that great grandson of the vicar of Goodrich, who was then in possession of part of the family estate: "Doctor Swift will bee obligeing to Goodrich in presenting the cupp to our church, which is Goodrich church, and is a vicaridge endow'd. Our grandfa ther, Mr Thomas Swift, was vicar of this church of Goodrich. The present vicar is Mr Daniell Wilson. "Twill be a very safe way to direct the cupp to Bristoll, to Mr James Hillhouse, merchant there, and direct him to deliver it to the present vicar's order. We have correspondence every fortnight by a navigable river to Bristoll." The chalice had been the property of Swift's grandfather, as appears from the following inscription: THOMAS SWIFT, HUJUS ECCLESIÆ RECTOR, NOTUS IN HISTORIIS OB EA QUÆ FECIT ET PASSUS EST PRO CAROLO PRIMO, EX HOC CALICE ÆGROTANTIBUS PROPINAVIT. EUNDEM CALICEM JONATH. SWIft, S. T. D. DecAN. SANCTI PATRICI, DUBLIN, THOmæ ex filio nEPOS HUIC ECCLESIÆ IN PERPETUAM DEDICAT. 1725. This inscription is from a scroll in the Dean's hand writing, bearing the fol lowing variation in that of Tickell the poet. "Vinum ex hoc calice consecratum fidelibus fuga aut morbo propinavit." It is said, by tradition in Mr Tickell's family, that the inscription was also revised by Addison. + It appears that the Dean intended to have enlarged this memorial of his ancestors with the assistance of Dr Lyons, among whose papers the editor found the following memorandum, labelled in Swift's hand-writing, "Memoirs of my grandfather, Thomas Swift, by Mr Lyons. April 1758." The editor has prefixed the extract from Mercurius Rusticus, to which Mr Lyons' memoranda refer. "When the Earl of Stamford was in Herefordshire in October 1642, and pillaged all that kept faith and allegiance to the king, information was given to Mistris Swift, wife of Mr Thomas Swift, parson of Goodwich, that her house was designed to be plundered. To prevent so great a danger, she instantly repaired to Hereford, where the earl then was, some ten miles from her own home, to petition him that no violence might be offered to her house or goods. He most nobly, and according to the goodness of his disposition, threw the petition away, and swore no small oaths that she should be plundered to-morrow. The good gentlewoman, being out of hope to prevail, and seeing there was no good to be done by petitioning him, speeds home as fast |