nine the pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence of an ascendant mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver had described his yahoos before the visit; and he that had formed those images had nothing filthy to learn.

upon

In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much which the critick can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness and gayety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhimes exact. There seldom occurs a hard laboured expression, or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style, they consist of " proper words in proper places."

To divide this collection into classes, and show how some pieces are gross, and some are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.

It was said, in a preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a single thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be found that has borrowed so little, or that, in all his excellences and all his defects, has so well maintained his claim to be considered as original.

EXTRACTS

FROM MR. MONCK-BERKELEY'S INQUIRY INTO THE LIFE OF DEAN SWIFT.

THE principal charges that are stated as affecting

the character of Swift are as follows: His want of benevolence, his impiety, and his treatment of Stella and Vanessa. To these I shall reply in the order in which they are here stated. It will however be necessary, before I proceed on the subject of these charges, to take a transient survey of those writers from whose reports the publick have formed their ideas of this illustrious man. His biographers were four in number; Orrery, Hawkesworth, Johnson, and Sheridan: for as to Dr. Delany, Deane Swift, esq., and Mrs. Pilkington, they come under a different description.

How far the biographers of Swift adhered to truth, were uninfluenced by prejudice, or were possessed of information, shall now be inquired.

The first in order is lord Orrery. As, during the life of Swift, this man was the most assiduous of his visitors, and the most servile of his flatterers, when the memoirs of the illustrious dean were announced as coming from the pen of Orrery, expectation waited appearance of unlimited panegyrick. Great was the disappointment of the world when a libel, replete with the most ungenerous, the most unmerited ac

the

cusations,

cusations, was the only tribute his lordship offered to the memory of departed worth. To see the hand of friendship planting a thorn at the grave it ought to have decorated with roses, excited the indignation of the good, and the wonder of the bad.

On a conduct so repugnant to honour and to justice, and for which no cause but the general depravity of weak minds has hitherto been assigned, the following anecdote will perhaps throw some light. -Lord Orrery having one day gained admission to Swift's library, discovered a letter of his own, written several years before, lying still unopened, and on which Swift had written, "This will keep cold." As in a publication of this kind, authenticity is of the utmost importance, I shall to this, as to every other anecdote, add the name of my informer. The story which I have just communicated, was related to me by the rev. Dr. Berkeley, prebendary of Canterbury, and son of the late bishop of Cloyne. Were any additional authority necessary to procure it credit, I could add, that the story was also related to me by the late archbishop of Tuam, who thought, as I do, that it fully accounts for the malignity that dictated, and the treachery that blackens, every page of lord Orrery's publication, While the sanction of Swift could support his lordship's ill-founded claims to genius, boundless was the respect which he professed to entertain for his literary patron; but when the venerable pile was mouldering in the dust, the right honourable biographer erected on the ruins a temple to perfidy and though he had not even the courage of the ass to insult the dying lion, yet, monster like, he preyed upon the carcase. I shall conclude my observations on his lordship's performance, by saying,

that though he possessed the amplest means of information, he has given the publick a work equally deficient in matter and in truth.

Although, after what I have said, to draw lord Orrery's character is hardly necessary; yet, as he once had a sort of literary reputation, the opinion delivered of him by the celebrated bishop of Cloyne may possibly be thought worth preserving. It was as follows: "My lord Orrery would be a man of genius if he knew how to set about it."

Dr. Hawkesworth is the next of Swift's biographers that occurs. For the task he undertook his talents were fully equal; and the period at which he wrote was friendly to impartiality. Swift had now been dead some years; and Hawkesworth was the first man from whom the publick could expect a totally unprejudiced account of his life. To Hawkesworth, except as a writer, Swift was wholly unknown. His mirth had never enlivened the hours, nor had his satire embittered the repose, of him who was now to be his biographer; circumstances these highly favourable to impartial investigation and candid decision. But alas! Hawkesworth contented himself with such materials as the life of Orrery and the apologies of Deane Swift and Dr. Delany afforded, adding nothing to this stock of information but a few scattered remarks collected by Johnson. Of his performance, therefore, I shall only observe, that its information is sometimes useful and amusing, and that its misrepresentations are never intentional.

Some years after the publication of Hawkesworth's Life, on the Collection of the British Poets, Johnson, the general and able biographer, reclaimed for his own use the materials he had originally communi

cated

cated to his friend. Of fresh matter he added little. At his time of life indolence was excusable. But the little which he gave bears incontestable marks of its origin; and however incorrect the Life of Swift (as given by Johnson) may be considered, it is but justice to say, that he is the only one of the dean's biographers who has offered any thing in extenuation of his conduct toward Stella and Vanessa. At the same time, it is impossible not to regret, that when Johnson became the biographer of Swift, he should have contented himself with pursuing the beaten track; for had he provided himself with materials that might have easily been collected, a life would have been given to the world, which, like his own inimitable Rasselas, would have at once diffused pleasure and instruction.

The last of this great man's biographers was Sheridan; a name not unknown to genius, and with which one has long been accustomed to connect ideas of literary merit and of Swift. From the writer now before us may be collected much information, and that information well authenticated. His father's intimacy, and his own acquaintance with the dean, had enabled him to acquire a thorough knowledge of Swift's later years, of which Dr. Sheridan was the constant companion; and it is about them only that the publick wishes for information. The former were passed in a station too conspicuous to admit of secrecy, in a manner too splendid to escape obser

vation.

At the same time, I cannot refrain from observing, that some few passages in Sheridan's memoirs are deserving of censure, especially in his attempt to vindicate the conduct of Swift toward those two cele

brated