which he never forgot, conceiving that there was a great distinction (as he wrote to Pope) 'between the English gentry of Ireland and the savage old Irish.' His grandfather was vicar of Goodrich, in Herefordshire, who lost his fortune through his zeal and activity for Charles I. during the Civil War. Three of the vicar's sons settled in Ireland; and Jonathan Swift, father of the celebrated author, was bred to the law in Dublin. He was steward to the society of the King's Inns, but died in great poverty before the birth of his distinguished son. Swift was supported by his uncle; and the circumstances of want and dependence with which he was early familiar, seem to have sunk deep into his haughty soul. Born a posthumous child,' says Sir Walter Scott, and bred up an object of charity, he early adopted the custom of observing his birthday as a term, not of joy, but of sorrow, and of reading, when it annually recurred, the striking passage of Scripture in which Job laments and execrates the day upon which it was said in his father's house "that a man-child was born."' Swift was 'sent to Trinity College, Dublin, which he left in his twenty-first year-having only obtained his degree by special favour-and was received into the house of Sir William Temple, a distant relation of his mother. Here Swift met King William, and indulged hopes of preferment, which were never realised. In 1692, he repaired to Oxford, for the purpose of taking his degree of M.A.; and shortly after obtaining this distinction, he resolved to quit the establishment of Temple, and take orders in the Irish Church. He procured the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, but was soon disgusted with the life of an obscure country clergyman with an income of £100 a year. He returned to Moor Park, the house of Sir William Temple, and threw up his living at Kilroot. Temple died in 1699, and the poet was glad to accompany Lord Berkeley to Ireland in the capacity of chaplain. From this nobleman he obtained the rectory of Aghar, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathveggan; to which was afterwards added the prebend of Dunlavin, making his income only about £200 per annum. At Moor Park, Swift had (as stated in our notice of Temple) contracted an intimacy with Miss Esther Johnson, nominally the daughter of Sir William Temple's housekeeper; but her face, her position in the family, and Sir William's treatment of her, seemed to some to proclaim the fact that she was Temple's natural child. He left her £1000. She went, with a female friend, to reside in Ireland, to be near Swift, her early instructor, but they never were alone together. In 1701, Swift became a political writer on the side of the Whigs, and on his visits to England, he associated with Addison, Steele, and Halifax. In 1704 was published his Tale of a Tub, the wildest and wittiest of all polemical or controversial works. In 1710, conceiving that he was neglected by the ministry, he quarrelled with the Whigs, and united with Harley and the Tory administration. He was received with open arms. 'I stand with the new people,' he writes to Stella, 'ten times better than ever I did with the old, and forty times more caressed.' He carried with him shining weapons for party warfare-irresistible and unscrupulous satire, steady hate, and a dauntless spirit. From his new allies, he received, in 1713, the deanery of Did St Patrick's. During his residence in England, he had engaged the affections of another young lady, Esther Vanhomrigh, who, under the name of Vanessa, rivalled Stella in poetical celebrity, and in personal misfortune. After the death of her father, this young lady and her sister retired to Ireland, where their father had left a small property near Dublin. Human nature has, perhaps, never before or since presented the spectacle of a man of such transcendent powers as Swift involved in such a pitiable labyrinth of the affections. His pride or ambition led him to postpone indefinitely his marriage with Stella, to whom he was early attached. Though, he said, he 'loved her better than his life a thousand millions of times,' he kept her hanging on in a state of hope deferred, injurious alike to her peace and her reputation. he fear the scorn and laughter of the world, if he should marry the obscure daughter of Sir William Temple's housekeeper? He dared not afterwards, with manly sincerity, declare his situation to Vanessa, when this second victim avowed her passion. He was flattered that a girl of eighteen, of beauty and accomplishments, 'sighed for a gown of fortyfour,' and he did not stop to weigh the consequences. The removal of Vanessa to Ireland, as Stella had gone before, to be near the presence of Swift-her irrepressible passion, which no coldness or neglect could extinguish-her life of deep seclusion, only checkered by the occasional visits of Swift, each of which she commemorated by planting with her own hand a laurel in the garden where they met her agonising remonstrances, when all her devotion and her offerings had failed, are touching beyond expression. 'The reason I write to you,' she says, ' is because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you. For when I begin to complain, then you are angry; and there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can. Did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this and live.' To a being thus agitated and engrossed with the strongest passion, how poor, how cruel, must have seemed the return of Swift! Cadenus, common forms apart, In every scene had kept his heart; Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ, In school to hear the finest boy. The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years had Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless attachment. At length she wrote to Stella, to ascertain the nature of the connection between her and Swift; the latter obtained the fatal letter, and rode instantly to Marley Abbey, the residence of the unhappy Vanessa. 'As he entered the apartment,' to adopt the picturesque language of Scott in recording the scene, 'the sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table; and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview, is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.'* If I ne'er got or lost a groat As thus: 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker! Swift was at first disliked in Ireland, but the Drapier's Letters and other works gave him unbounded popularity. His wish to serve Ireland was one of his ruling passions; yet it was something like the instinct of the inferior animals towards their offspring; waywardness, contempt, and abuse were strangely mingled with affectionate attachment and ardent zeal. Kisses and curses were alternately on his lips. Ireland, however, gave Swift her whole heart-he was more than king of the rabble. After various attacks of deafness and giddiness, his temper became ungovernable, and his reason gave way. Truly and beautifully has Scott said, 'the stage darkened ere the curtain fell.' Even Stella, though believed by her friends to have been ultimately united to Swift, dropped into the grave without any public recognition of the tie; they were married, it is said, in secrecy in the garden of the deanery, when on her part all but life had faded away. The fair sufferers were deeply avenged. But let us adopt the only charitable—perhaps the just-interpretation of Swift's conduct; the malady which at length overwhelmed his reason might then have been lurking in his frame; and consciousness of the fact kept him single. Some years before Vanessa's death, a scene occurred which has been related by Young, The sad story of his latter days melts and overthe author of the Night Thoughts. Swift was walking with some friends in the neighbour-ceeded by the dementia of old age. For three awes the imagination. Fits of lunacy were suchood of Dublin. Perceiving he did not follow us,' says Young, 'I went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, which in its uppermost branches was much decayed. Pointing at it, he said: "I shall be like that tree; I shall die at the top." The same presentiment finds expression in his exquisite imitation of Horace (Book ii. Satire 6), made in conjunction with Pope: I've often wished that I had clear Well, now I have all this and more, I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, *The talents of Vanessa may be seen from her letters to Swift. They are further evinced in the following Ode to Spring, in which she alludes to her unhappy attachment; Hail, blushing goddess, beauteous Spring! Loves and graces-smiling hours- Come, with tints of roseate hue, Nature's faded charms renew! Yet why should I thy presence hail? To me no more the breathing gale Comes fraught with sweets, no more the rose As when Cadenus blest the scene, Oh! still conjoined, your incense rise, years he uttered only a few words and broken Swift's fortune, amounting to about £10,000, he left chiefly to found a lunatic asylum in Dublin. He gave the little wealth he had Gulliver's Travels and the Tale of a Tub must ever be the chief corner-stones of Swift's fame. *Hic depositum est corpus JONATHAN SWIFT, S. T. P. hujus ecclesiæ Cathedralis Decani, ubi sæva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. Abi viator et imitare, si poteris strenuum pro virili libertatis vindicem, &c. The purity of his prose style renders it a model of English composition. He could wither with his irony and invective; excite to mirth with his wit and invention; transport as with wonder at his marvellous powers of grotesque and ludicrous combination, his knowledge of human nature— piercing quite through the deeds of men-and his matchless power of feigning reality, and assuming at pleasure different characters and situations in life. He is often disgustingly coarse and gross in his style and subjects; but he is never licentious; his grossness is always repulsive, not seductive. Swift's poetry is perfect, exactly as the old Dutch artists were perfect painters. He never attempted to rise above this 'visible diurnal sphere.' He is content to lash the frivolities of the age, and to depict its absurdities. In his too faithful representations, there is much to condemn and much to admire. Who has not felt the truth and humour of his City Shower, and his description of Morning? Or the liveliness of his Grand Question Debated, in which the knight, his lady, and the chambermaid, are so admirably drawn? His most ambitious flight is his Rhapsody on Poetry, and even this is pitched in a pretty low key. Its best lines are easily remembered: Not empire to the rising sun, Not beggar's brat on bulk begot; To rise in church, or law, or state, Swift's Verses on his own Death are the finest example of his peculiar poetical vein. He predicts what his friends will say of his illness, his death, and his reputation, varying the style and the topics to suit each of the parties. The versification is easy and flowing, with nothing but the most familiar and common-place expressions. There are some little touches of homely pathos, which are felt like trickling tears, and the effect of the piece altogether is electrical: it carries with it the strongest conviction of its sincerity and truth; and we see and feel-especially as years creep on -how faithful a depicter of human nature, in its frailty and weakness, was the misanthropic Dean of St Patrick's. A Description of a City Shower. Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then go not far to dine; You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine. A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage: Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings, That swilled more liquor than it could contain, And, like a drunkard, gives it up again. Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope, While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope; Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean Flirts on you from her mop-but not so clean : You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop. Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife, But aided by the wind, fought still for life, And wafted with its foe by violent gust, 'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust. Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid, When dust and rain at once his coat invade? Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain! Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, Threatening with deluge this devoted town. To shops in crowds the daggled females fly, Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy. The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides. Here various kinds, by various fortunes led, Commence acquaintance underneath a shed. Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs. Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits, While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits; And ever and anon with frightful din The leather sounds; he trembles from within. So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed, Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freedThose bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do, Instead of paying chairmen, run them throughLaocoon struck the outside with his spear, And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear. Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go: Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell What street they sailed from by their sight and smell. They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force, From Smithfield or St 'Pulchre's shape their course, And in huge confluence joined at Snowhill ridge, Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge. Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood. Baucis and Philemon. Imitated from the Eighth Book of Ovid.-Written about 1708. It happened on a winter night- Our wandering saints in woful state, They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft, The chimney widened, and grew higher; The kettle to the top was hoist, In vain; for some superior force, A wooden jack, which had almost Turned round so quick you scarce could see 't; The jack and chimney, near allied, The porringers, that in a row The ballads pasted on the wall, A bedstead of the antique mode, The cottage, by such feats as these, He spoke, and presently he feels As threadbare and as full of dust. Dame Baucis next they played their farce When on a day, which proved their last, "My dear, I see your forehead sprout !' Description would but tire my muse; From Verses on the Death of Dr Swift, Nov. 1731.* As Rochefoucault his Maxims drew This maxim more than all the rest We all behold with envious eyes Lies racked with pain, and you without : What poet would not grieve to see Her end when emulation misses, Vain human kind! fantastic race! Their empire in our hearts divide. *Occasioned by reading the following maxim in Rochefoucault: 'Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplait pas.' (In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something that does not displease us.) | Give others riches, power, and station, 'Tis all on me an usurpation. I have no title to aspire; Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher. 1 To all my foes, dear Fortune, send But this with envy makes me burst. Thus much may serve by way of proem; Proceed we therefore to our poem. The time is not remote, when I He recollects not what he says; 'For poetry, he's past his prime; His stomach, too, begins to fail; Last year we thought him strong and hale; But now he's quite another thing; I wish he may hold out till spring.' They hug themselves and reason thus: 'It is not yet so bad with us.' |