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diff --git a/41532-8.txt b/41532-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8a882e6..0000000 --- a/41532-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6457 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Swift, by Leslie Stephen - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Swift - English Men of Letters Series - - -Author: Leslie Stephen - - - -Release Date: December 1, 2012 [eBook #41532] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SWIFT*** - - -E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (http://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - http://archive.org/details/swiftletters00stepuoft - - - - - -English Men of Letters - -Edited by John Morley - -SWIFT - -by - -LESLIE STEPHEN - - - - - - - -London: -Macmillan and Co. -1882. - -The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved - - - - -PREFACE. - - -The chief materials for a life of Swift are to be found in his writings -and correspondence. The best edition is the second of the two edited by -Scott (1814 and 1824). - -In 1751 Lord Orrery published _Remarks upon the Life and Writings of Dr. -Jonathan Swift_. Orrery, born 1707, had known Swift from about 1732. His -remarks give the views of a person of quality of more ambition than -capacity, and more anxious to exhibit his own taste than to give full or -accurate information. - -In 1754, Dr. Delany published _Observations upon Lord Orrery's Remarks_, -intended to vindicate Swift against some of Orrery's severe judgments. -Delany, born about 1685, became intimate with Swift soon after the dean's -final settlement in Ireland. He was then one of the authorities of Trinity -College, Dublin. He is the best contemporary authority, so far as he goes. - -In 1756 Deane Swift, grandson of Swift's uncle Godwin, and son-in-law to -Swift's cousin and faithful guardian, Mrs. Whiteway, published an _Essay -upon the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Jonathan Swift_, in which he -attacks both his predecessors. Deane Swift, born about 1708, had seen -little or nothing of his cousin till the year 1738, when the dean's -faculties were decaying. His book is foolish and discursive. Deane Swift's -son, Theophilus, communicated a good deal of doubtful matter to Scott, on -the authority of family tradition. - -In 1765 Hawkesworth, who had no personal knowledge, prefixed a life of -Swift to an edition of the works which adds nothing to our information. In -1781 Johnson, when publishing a very perfunctory life of Swift as one of -the poets, excused its shortcomings on the ground of having already -communicated his thoughts to Hawkesworth. The life is not only meagre but -injured by one of Johnson's strong prejudices. - -In 1785 Thomas Sheridan produced a pompous and dull life of Swift. He was -the son of Swift's most intimate companion during the whole period -subsequent to the final settlement in Ireland. The elder Sheridan, -however, died in 1738; and the younger, born in 1721, was still a boy when -Swift was becoming imbecile. - -Contemporary writers, except Delany, have thus little authority; and a -number of more or less palpably fictitious anecdotes accumulated round -their hero. Scott's life, originally published in 1814, is defective in -point of accuracy. Scott did not investigate the evidence minutely, and -liked a good story too well to be very particular about its authenticity. -The book, however, shows his strong sense and genial appreciation of -character; and remains, till this day, by far the best account of Swift's -career. - -A life which supplies Scott's defects in great measure was given by -William Monck Mason, in 1819, in his _History and Antiquities of the -Church of St. Patrick_. Monck Mason was an indiscriminate admirer, and has -a provoking method of expanding undigested information into monstrous -notes, after the precedent of Bayle. But he examined facts with the utmost -care, and every biographer must respect his authority. - -In 1875 Mr. Forster published the first instalment of a _Life of Swift_. -This book, which contains the results of patient and thorough inquiry, was -unfortunately interrupted by Mr. Forster's death, and ends at the -beginning of 1711. A complete _Life_ by Mr. Henry Craik is announced as -about to appear. - -Besides these books, I ought to mention an _Essay upon the Earlier Part of -the Life of Swift_, by the Rev. John Barrett, B.D. and Vice-Provost of -Trin. Coll. Dublin (London, 1808); and _The Closing Years of Dean Swift's -Life_, by W. R. Wilde, M.R.I.A., F.R.C.S. (Dublin, 1849). This last is a -very interesting study of the medical aspects of Swift's life. An essay by -Dr. Bucknill, in _Brain_ for Jan. 1882, is a remarkable contribution to -the same subject. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I. - EARLY YEARS 1 - - CHAPTER II. - MOOR PARK AND KILROOT 12 - - CHAPTER III. - EARLY WRITINGS 32 - - CHAPTER IV. - LARACOR AND LONDON 51 - - CHAPTER V. - THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION 77 - - CHAPTER VI. - STELLA AND VANESSA 118 - - CHAPTER VII. - WOOD'S HALFPENCE 147 - - CHAPTER VIII. - GULLIVER'S TRAVELS 168 - - CHAPTER IX. - DECLINE 186 - - - - -SWIFT. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -EARLY YEARS. - - -Jonathan Swift, the famous Dean of St. Patrick's, was the descendant of an -old Yorkshire family. One branch had migrated southwards, and in the time -of Charles I., Thomas Swift, Jonathan's grandfather, was Vicar of -Goodrich, near Ross, in Herefordshire, a fact commemorated by the sweetest -singer of Queen Ann's reign in the remarkable lines-- - - Jonathan Swift - Had the gift - By fatherige, motherige, - And by brotherige, - To come from Gotheridge. - -Thomas Swift married Elizabeth Dryden, niece of Sir Erasmus, the -grandfather of the poet Dryden. By her he became the father of ten sons -and four daughters. In the great rebellion he distinguished himself by a -loyalty which was the cause of obvious complacency to his descendant. On -one occasion he came to the governor of a town held for the king, and -being asked what he could do for his Majesty, laid down his coat as an -offering. The governor remarked that his coat was worth little. "Then," -said Swift, "take my waistcoat." The waistcoat was lined with three -hundred broad pieces--a handsome offering from a poor and plundered -clergyman. On another occasion he armed a ford, through which rebel -cavalry were to pass, by certain pieces of iron with four spikes, so -contrived that one spike must always be uppermost (_caltrops_, in short). -Two hundred of the enemy were destroyed by this stratagem. The success of -the rebels naturally led to the ruin of this cavalier clergyman; and the -record of his calamities forms a conspicuous article in Walker's -_Sufferings of the Clergy_. He died in 1658, before the advent of the -better times in which he might have been rewarded for his loyal services. -His numerous family had to struggle for a living. The eldest son, Godwin -Swift, was a barrister of Gray's Inn at the time of the Restoration: he -was married four times, and three times to women of fortune; his first -wife had been related to the Ormond family; and this connexion induced him -to seek his fortune in Ireland--a kingdom which at that time suffered, -amongst other less endurable grievances, from a deficient supply of -lawyers.[1] Godwin Swift was made Attorney-General in the palatinate of -Tipperary by the Duke of Ormond. He prospered in his profession, in the -subtle parts of which, says his nephew, he was "perhaps a little too -dexterous;" and he engaged in various speculations, having at one time -what was then the very large income of 3000_l._ a year. Four brothers -accompanied this successful Godwin, and shared to some extent in his -prosperity. In January, 1666, one of these, Jonathan, married to Abigail -Erick, of Leicester, was appointed to the stewardship of the King's Inns, -Dublin, partly in consideration of the loyalty and suffering of his -family. Some fifteen months later, in April, 1667, he died, leaving his -widow with an infant daughter, and seven months after her husband's death, -November 30, 1667, she gave birth to Jonathan, the younger, at 7, Hoey's -Court, Dublin. - -The Dean "hath often been heard to say" (I quote his fragment of -autobiography) "that he felt the consequences of that (his parents') -marriage, not only through the whole course of his education, but during -the greater part of his life." This quaint assumption that a man's -parentage is a kind of removable accident to which may be attributed a -limited part of his subsequent career, betrays a characteristic sentiment. -Swift cherished a vague resentment against the fates which had mixed -bitter ingredients in his lot. He felt the place as well as the -circumstances of his birth to be a grievance. It gave a plausibility to -the offensive imputation that he was of Irish blood. "I happened," he -said, with a bitterness born of later sufferings, "by a perfect accident -to be born here, and thus I am a Teague, or an Irishman, or what people -please." Elsewhere he claims England as properly his own country; -"although I happened to be dropped here, and was a year old before I left -it (Ireland), and to my sorrow did not die before I came back to it." His -infancy brought fresh grievances. He was, it seems, a precocious and -delicate child, and his nurse became so much attached to him, that having -to return to her native Whitehaven, she kidnapped the year-old infant out -of pure affection. When his mother knew her loss, she was afraid to hazard -a return voyage until the child was stronger; and he thus remained nearly -three years at Whitehaven, where the nurse took such care of his -education, that he could read any chapter in the Bible before he was three -years old. His return must have been speedily followed by his mother's -departure for her native Leicester. Her sole dependence, it seems, was an -annuity of 20_l._ a year, which had been bought for her by her husband -upon their marriage. Some of the Swift family seem also to have helped -her; but for reasons not now discoverable, she found Leicester preferable -to Dublin, even at the price of parting from the little Jonathan. Godwin -took him off her hands and sent him to Kilkenny School at the age of six, -and from that early period the child had to grow up as virtually an -orphan. His mother through several years to come can have been little more -than a name to him. Kilkenny School, called the "Eton of Ireland," enjoyed -a high reputation. Two of Swift's most famous contemporaries were educated -there. Congreve, two years his junior, was one of his schoolfellows, and a -warm friendship remained when both had become famous. Fourteen years after -Swift had left the school it was entered by George Berkeley, destined to -win a fame of the purest and highest kind, and to come into a strange -relationship to Swift. It would be vain to ask what credit may be claimed -by Kilkenny School for thus "producing" (it is the word used on such -occasions) the greatest satirist, the most brilliant writer of comedies, -and the subtlest metaphysician in the English language. Our knowledge of -Swift's experiences at this period is almost confined to a single -anecdote. "I remember," he says incidentally in a letter to Lord -Bolingbroke, "when I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end of -my line, which I drew up almost on the ground; but it dropped in, and the -disappointment vexes me to this very day, and I believe it was the type of -all my future disappointments."[2] - -Swift, indeed, was still in the schoolboy stage, according to modern -ideas, when he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, on the same day, -April 24, 1682, with a cousin, Thomas Swift. Swift clearly found Dublin -uncongenial; though there is still a wide margin for uncertainty as to -precise facts. His own account gives a short summary of his academic -history:-- - -"By the ill-treatment of his nearest relations" (he says) "he was so -discouraged and sunk in his spirits that he too much neglected his -academic studies, for some parts of which he had no great relish by -nature, and turned himself to reading history and poetry, so that when the -time came for taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts, although he had lived -with great regularity and due observance of the statutes, he was stopped -of his degree for dulness and insufficiency; and at last hardly admitted -in a manner little to his credit, which is called in that college -_speciali gratia_." In a report of one of the college examinations, -discovered by Mr. Forster, he receives a _bene_ for his Greek and Latin, a -_male_ for his "philosophy," and a _negligenter_ for his theology. The -"philosophy" was still based upon the old scholasticism, and proficiency -was tested by skill in the arts of syllogistic argumentation. Sheridan, -son of Swift's intimate friend, was a student at Dublin shortly before the -Dean's loss of intellectual power; the old gentleman would naturally talk -to the lad about his university recollections; and, according to his -hearer, remembered with singular accuracy the questions upon which he had -disputed, and repeated the arguments which had been used, "in syllogistic -form." Swift at the same time declared, if the report be accurate, that he -never had the patience to read the pages of Smiglecius, Burgersdicius, and -the other old-fashioned logical treatises. When told that they taught the -art of reasoning, he declared that he could reason very well without it. -He acted upon this principle in his exercises, and left the Proctor to -reduce his argument to the proper form. In this there is probably a -substratum of truth. Swift can hardly be credited, as Berkeley might have -been, with a precocious perception of the weakness of the accepted system. -When young gentlemen are plucked for their degree, it is not generally -because they are in advance of their age. But the aversion to metaphysics -was characteristic of Swift through life. Like many other people who have -no turn for such speculations, he felt for them a contempt which may -perhaps be not the less justified because it does not arise from -familiarity. The bent of his mind was already sufficiently marked to make -him revolt against the kind of mental food which was most in favour at -Dublin; though he seems to have obtained a fair knowledge of the classics. - -Swift cherished through life a resentment against most of his relations. -His uncle Godwin had undertaken his education, and had sent him, as we -see, to the best places of education in Ireland. If the supplies became -scanty, it must be admitted that poor Godwin had a sufficient excuse. Each -of his four wives had brought him a family--the last leaving him seven -sons; his fortunes had been dissipated, chiefly, it seems, by means of a -speculation in iron-works; and the poor man himself seems to have been -failing, for he "fell into a lethargy" in 1688, surviving some five years, -like his famous nephew, in a state of imbecility. Decay of mind and -fortune coinciding with the demands of a rising family might certainly be -some apology for the neglect of one amongst many nephews. Swift did not -consider it sufficient. "Was it not your uncle Godwin," he was asked "who -educated you?" "Yes," said Swift, after a pause; "he gave me the education -of a dog." "Then," answered the intrepid inquirer, "you have not the -gratitude of a dog." And perhaps that is our natural impression. Yet we do -not know enough of the facts to judge with confidence. Swift, whatever his -faults, was always a warm and faithful friend; and perhaps it is the most -probable conjecture that Godwin Swift bestowed his charity coldly and in -such a way as to hurt the pride of the recipient. In any case, it appears -that Swift showed his resentment in a manner more natural than reasonable. -The child is tempted to revenge himself by knocking his head against the -rock which has broken his shins; and with equal wisdom the youth who -fancies that the world is not his friend, tries to get satisfaction by -defying its laws. Till the time of his degree (February, 1686), Swift had -been at least regular in his conduct, and if the neglect of his relations -had discouraged his industry, it had not provoked him to rebellion. During -the three years which followed he became more reckless. He was still a -mere lad, just eighteen at the time of his degree, when he fell into more -or less irregular courses. In rather less than two years he was under -censure for seventy weeks. The offences consisted chiefly in neglect to -attend chapel and in "town-haunting" or absence from the nightly -roll-call. Such offences perhaps appear to be more flagrant than they -really are in the eyes of college authorities. Twice he got into more -serious scrapes. He was censured (March 16, 1687) along with his cousin, -Thomas Swift, and several others for "notorious neglect of duties and -frequenting 'the town.'" And on his twenty-first birthday (Nov. 30, 1688) -he[3] was punished, along with several others, for exciting domestic -dissensions, despising the warnings of the junior dean, and insulting that -official by contemptuous words. The offenders were suspended from their -degrees, and inasmuch as Swift and another were the worst offenders -(_adhuc intolerabilius se gesserant_), they were sentenced to ask pardon -of the dean upon their knees publicly in the hall. Twenty years later[4] -Swift revenged himself upon Owen Lloyd, the junior dean, by accusing him -of infamous servility. For the present Swift was probably reckoned amongst -the black sheep of the academic flock.[5] - -This censure came at the end of Swift's university career. The three last -years had doubtless been years of discouragement and recklessness. That -they were also years of vice in the usual sense of the word is not proved; -nor, from all that we know of Swift's later history, does it seem to be -probable. There is no trace of anything like licentious behaviour in his -whole career. It is easier to believe with Scott that Swift's conduct at -this period might be fairly described in the words of Johnson when -speaking of his own university experience: "Ah, sir, I was mad and -violent. It was bitterness that they mistook for frolic. I was miserably -poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I -disregarded all power and all authority." Swift learnt another and a more -profitable lesson in these years. It is indicated in an anecdote which -rests upon tolerable authority. One day, as he was gazing in melancholy -mood from his window, his pockets at their lowest ebb, he saw a sailor -staring about in the college courts. How happy should I be, he thought, if -that man was inquiring for me with a present from my cousin Willoughby! -The dream came true. The sailor came to his rooms and produced a leather -bag, sent by his cousin from Lisbon, with more money than poor Jonathan -had ever possessed in his life. The sailor refused to take a part of it -for his trouble, and Jonathan hastily crammed the money into his pocket, -lest the man should repent of his generosity. From that time forward, he -added, he became a better economist. - -The Willoughby Swift here mentioned was the eldest son of Godwin, and now -settled in the English factory at Lisbon. Swift speaks warmly of his -"goodness and generosity" in a letter written to another cousin in 1694. -Some help, too, was given by his uncle William, who was settled at Dublin, -and whom he calls the "best of his relations." In one way or another he -was able to keep his head above water; and he was receiving an impression -which grew with his growth. The misery of dependence was burnt into his -soul. To secure independence became his most cherished wish; and the first -condition of independence was a rigid practice of economy. We shall see -hereafter how deeply this principle became rooted in his mind; here I need -only notice that it is the lesson which poverty teaches to none but men of -strong character. - -A catastrophe meanwhile was approaching, which involved the fortunes of -Swift along with those of nations. James II. had been on the throne for a -year when Swift took his degree. At the time when Swift was ordered to -kneel to the junior dean, William was in England, and James preparing to -fly from Whitehall. The revolution of 1688 meant a breaking up of the very -foundations of political and social order in Ireland. At the end of 1688 a -stream of fugitives was pouring into England, whilst the English in -Ireland were gathering into strong places, abandoning their property to -the bands of insurgent peasants. - -Swift fled with his fellows. Any prospects which he may have had in -Ireland were ruined with the ruin of his race. The loyalty of his -grandfather to a king who protected the national church was no precedent -for loyalty to a king who was its deadliest enemy. Swift, a Churchman to -the backbone, never shared the leaning of many Anglicans to the exiled -Stuarts; and his early experience was a pretty strong dissuasive from -Jacobitism. He took refuge with his mother at Leicester. Of that mother we -hear less than we could wish; for all that we hear suggests a brisk, -wholesome, motherly body. She lived cheerfully and frugally on her -pittance; rose early, worked with her needle, read her book, and deemed -herself to be "rich and happy"--on twenty pounds a year. A touch of her -son's humour appears in the only anecdote about her. She came, it seems, -to visit her son in Ireland shortly after he had taken possession of -Laracor, and amused herself by persuading the woman with whom she lodged -that Jonathan was not her son but her lover. Her son, though separated -from her through the years in which filial affection is generally -nourished, loved her with the whole strength of his nature; he wrote to -her frequently, took pains to pay her visits "rarely less than once a -year;" and was deeply affected by her death in 1710. "I have now lost," he -wrote in his pocket-book, "the last barrier between me and death. God -grant I may be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to -have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice, and -charity, she is there." - -The good lady had, it would seem, some little anxieties of the common kind -about her son. She thought him in danger of falling in love with a certain -Betty Jones, who, however, escaped the perils of being wife to a man of -genius, and married an innkeeper. Some forty years later, Betty Jones, now -Perkins, appealed to Swift to help her in some family difficulties, and -Swift was ready to "sacrifice five pounds" for old acquaintance' sake. -Other vague reports of Swift's attentions to women seem to have been -flying about in Leicester. Swift, in noticing them, tells his -correspondent that he values "his own entertainment beyond the obloquy of -a parcel of wretched fools," which he "solemnly pronounces" to be a fit -description of the inhabitants of Leicester. He had, he admits, amused -himself with flirtation; but he has learnt enough, "without going half a -mile beyond the University," to refrain from thoughts of matrimony. A -"cold temper" and the absence of any settled outlook are sufficient -dissuasives. Another phrase in the same letter is characteristic. "A -person of great honour in Ireland (who was pleased to stoop so low as to -look into my mind) used to tell me that my mind was like a conjured spirit -that would do mischief if I did not give it employment." He allowed -himself these little liberties, he seems to infer, by way of distraction -for his restless nature. But some more serious work was necessary, if he -was to win the independence so earnestly desired, and to cease to be a -burden upon his mother. Where was he to look for help? - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. - - -How was this "conjured spirit" to find occupation? The proverbial -occupation of such beings is to cultivate despair by weaving ropes of -sand. Swift felt himself strong; but he had no task worthy of his -strength: nor did he yet know precisely where it lay: he even fancied that -it might be in the direction of Pindaric Odes. Hitherto his energy had -expended itself in the questionable shape of revolt against constituted -authority. But the revolt, whatever its precise nature, had issued in the -rooted determination to achieve a genuine independence. The political -storm which had for the time crushed the whole social order of Ireland -into mere chaotic anarchy, had left him an uprooted waif and stray--a -loose fragment without any points of attachment, except the little -household in Leicester. His mother might give him temporary shelter, but -no permanent home. If, as is probable, he already looked forward to a -clerical career, the Church to which he belonged was, for the time, -hopelessly ruined, and in danger of being a persecuted sect. - -In this crisis a refuge was offered to him. Sir William Temple was -connected, in more ways than one, with the Swifts. He was the son of Sir -John Temple, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, who had been a friend of -Godwin Swift. Temple himself had lived in Ireland, in early days, and had -known the Swift family. His wife was in some way related to Swift's -mother; and he was now in a position to help the young man. Temple is a -remarkable figure amongst the statesmen of that generation. There is -something more modern about him than belongs to his century. A man of -cultivated taste and cosmopolitan training, he had the contempt of -enlightened persons for the fanaticisms of his times. He was not the man -to suffer persecution, with Baxter, for a creed, or even to lose his head, -with Russell, for a party. Yet if he had not the faith which animates -enthusiasts, he sincerely held political theories--a fact sufficient to -raise him above the thorough-going cynics of the court of the restoration. -His sense of honour, or the want of robustness in mind and temperament, -kept him aloof from the desperate game in which the politicians of the day -staked their lives, and threw away their consciences as an incumbrance. -Good fortune threw him into the comparatively safe line of diplomacy, for -which his natural abilities fitted him. Good fortune, aided by -discernment, enabled him to identify himself with the most respectable -achievements of our foreign policy. He had become famous as the chief -author of the Triple Alliance, and the promoter of the marriage of William -and Mary. He had ventured far enough into the more troublous element of -domestic politics to invent a highly applauded constitutional device for -smoothing the relations between the crown and Parliament. Like other such -devices it went to pieces at the first contact with realities. Temple -retired to cultivate his garden and write elegant memoirs and essays, and -refused all entreaties to join again in the rough struggles of the day. -Associates, made of sterner stuff, probably despised him; but from their -own, that is, the selfish point of view, he was perhaps entitled to laugh -last. He escaped at least with unblemished honour, and enjoyed the -cultivated retirement which statesmen so often profess to desire, and so -seldom achieve. In private, he had many estimable qualities. He was frank -and sensitive; he had won diplomatic triumphs by disregarding the pedantry -of official rules; and he had an equal, though not an equally intelligent, -contempt for the pedantry of the schools. His style, though often -slipshod, often anticipates the pure and simple English of the Addison -period, and delighted Charles Lamb by its delicate flavour of aristocratic -assumption. He had the vanity of a "person of quality,"--a lofty, -dignified air which became his flowing periwig, and showed itself in his -distinguished features. But in youth, a strong vein of romance displayed -itself in his courtship of Lady Temple, and he seems to have been -correspondingly worshipped by her, and his sister, Lady Giffard. - -The personal friendship of William could not induce Temple to return to -public life. His only son took office, but soon afterwards killed himself -from a morbid sense of responsibility. Temple retired finally to Moor -Park, near Farnham, in Surrey; and about the same time received Swift into -his family. Long afterwards, John Temple, Sir William's nephew, who had -quarrelled with Swift, gave an obviously spiteful account of the terms of -this engagement. Swift, he said, was hired by Sir William to read to him -and be his amanuensis, at the rate of 20_l._ a year and his board; but -"Sir William never favoured him with his conversation, nor allowed him to -sit down at table with him." The authority is bad, and we must be guided -by rather precarious inferences in picturing this important period of -Swift's career. The raw Irish student was probably awkward, and may have -been disagreeable in some matters. Forty years later, we find from his -correspondence with Gay and the Duchess of Queensberry, that his views as -to the distribution of functions between knives and forks were lamentably -unsettled; and it is probable that he may in his youth have been still -more heretical as to social conventions. There were more serious -difficulties. The difference which separated Swift from Temple is not -easily measurable. How can we exaggerate the distance at which a lad, -fresh from college and a remote provincial society, would look up to the -distinguished diplomatist of sixty, who had been intimate with the two -last kings, and was still the confidential friend of the reigning king, -who had been an actor in the greatest scenes, not only of English, but of -European history, who had been treated with respect by the ministers of -Louis XIV., and in whose honour bells had been rung, and banquets set -forth as he passed through the great continental cities? Temple might have -spoken to him, without shocking proprieties, in terms which, if I may -quote the proverbial phrase, would be offensive "from God Almighty to a -blackbeetle." - - Shall I believe a spirit so divine - Was cast in the same mould with mine? - -is Swift's phrase about Temple, in one of his first crude poems. We must -not infer that circumstances which would now be offensive to an educated -man--the seat at the second table, the predestined congeniality to the -ladies'-maid of doubtful reputation--would have been equally offensive -then. So long as dependence upon patrons was a regular incident of the -career of a poor scholar, the corresponding regulations would be taken as -a matter of course. Swift was not necessarily more degraded by being a -dependent of Temple's than Locke by a similar position in Shaftesbury's -family. But it is true that such a position must always be trying, as many -a governess has felt in more modern days. The position of the educated -dependent must always have had its specific annoyances. At this period, -when the relation of patron and client was being rapidly modified or -destroyed, the compact would be more than usually trying to the power of -forbearance and mutual kindliness of the parties concerned. The relation -between Sir Roger de Coverley and the old college friend who became his -chaplain meant good feeling on both sides. When poor parson Supple became -chaplain to Squire Western, and was liable to be sent back from London to -Basingstoke in search of a forgotten tobacco-box, Supple must have parted -with all self-respect. Swift has incidentally given his own view of the -case in his _Essay on the Fates of Clergymen_. It is an application of one -of his favourite doctrines--the advantage possessed by mediocrity over -genius in a world so largely composed of fools. Eugenio, who represents -Jonathan Swift, fails in life because as a wit and a poet he has not the -art of winning patronage. Corusodes, in whom we have a partial likeness to -Tom Swift, Jonathan's college contemporary, and afterwards the chaplain of -Temple, succeeds by servile respectability. _He_ never neglected chapel, -or lectures: _he_ never looked into a poem: never made a jest himself, or -laughed at the jests of others: but he managed to insinuate himself into -the favour of the noble family where his sister was a waiting-woman; shook -hands with the butler, taught the page his catechism; was sometimes -admitted to dine at the steward's table; was admitted to read prayers, at -ten shillings a month: and, by winking at his patron's attentions to his -sister, gradually crept into better appointments, married a citizen's -widow, and is now fast mounting towards the top of the ladder -ecclesiastical. - -Temple was not the man to demand or reward services so base as those -attributed to Corusodes. Nor does it seem that he would be wanting in the -self-respect which prescribes due courtesy to inferiors, though it admits -of a strict regard for the ceremonial outworks of social dignity. He would -probably neither permit others to take liberties nor take them himself. If -Swift's self-esteem suffered, it would not be that he objected to offering -up the conventional incense, but that he might possibly think that, after -all, the idol was made of rather inferior clay. Temple, whatever his solid -merits, was one of the showiest statesmen of the time; but there was no -man living with a keener eye for realities and a more piercing insight -into shams of all kinds than his raw secretary from Ireland. In later life -Swift frequently expressed his scorn for the mysteries and the -"refinements" (to use his favourite phrase) by which the great men of the -world conceal the low passions and small wisdom actually exerted in -affairs of State. At times he felt that Temple was not merely claiming the -outward show of respect, but setting too high a value upon his real -merits. So when Swift was at the full flood of fortune, when prime -ministers and secretaries of state were calling him Jonathan, or listening -submissively to his lectures on "whipping-day," he reverts to his early -experience. "I often think," he says, when speaking of his own familiarity -with St. John, "what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being -secretary of state." And this is a less respectful version of a sentiment -expressed a year before, "I am thinking what a veneration we had for Sir -W. Temple because he might have been secretary of state at fifty, and here -is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment." In the interval there -is another characteristic outburst. "I asked Mr. Secretary (St. John) what -the devil ailed him on Sunday," and warned him "that I would never be -treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my life -already (meaning Sir W. Temple); that I expected every great minister who -honoured me with his acquaintance, if he heard and saw anything to my -disadvantage, would let me know in plain words, and not put me in pain to -guess by the change or coldness of his countenance and behaviour." The day -after this effusion, he maintains that he was right in what he said. -"Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir W. Temple would look -cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used to suspect a -hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since then; faith, he -spoiled a fine gentleman." And yet, if Swift sometimes thought Temple's -authority oppressive, he was ready to admit his substantial merits. -Temple, he says, in his rough marginalia to Burnet's _History_, "was a man -of sense and virtue;" and the impromptu utterance probably reflects his -real feeling. - -The year after his first arrival at Temple's, Swift went back to Ireland -by advice of physicians, who "weakly imagined that his native air might be -of some use to recover his health." It was at this period, we may note in -passing, that Swift began to suffer from a disease which tormented him -through life. Temple sent with him a letter of introduction to Sir Robert -Southwell, Secretary of State in Ireland, which gives an interesting -account of their previous relations. Swift, said Temple, had lived in his -house, read for him, written for him, and kept his small accounts. He knew -Latin and Greek, and a little French; wrote a good hand, and was honest -and diligent. His whole family had long been known to Temple, who would be -glad if Southwell would give him a clerkship, or get him a fellowship in -Trinity College. The statement of Swift's qualifications has now a rather -comic sound. An applicant for a desk in a merchant's office once commended -himself, it is said, by the statement that his style of writing combined -scathing sarcasm with the wildest flights of humour. Swift might have had -a better claim to a place for which such qualities were a recommendation; -but there is no reason beyond the supposed agreement of fools to regard -genius as a disadvantage in practical life, to suppose that Swift was -deficient in humbler attainments. Before long, however, he was back at -Moor Park; and a period followed in which his discontent with the position -probably reached its height. Temple, indeed, must have discovered that his -young dependent was really a man of capacity. He recommended him to -William. In 1692 Swift went to Oxford, to be admitted _ad eundem_, and -received the M.A. degree; and Swift, writing to thank his uncle for -obtaining the necessary testimonials from Dublin, adds that he has been -most civilly received at Oxford, on the strength, presumably, of Temple's -recommendation, and that he is not to take orders till the king gives him -a prebend. He suspects Temple, however, of being rather backward in the -matter, "because (I suppose) he believes I shall leave him, and (upon some -accounts) he thinks me a little necessary to him." William, it is said, -was so far gracious as to offer to make Swift a captain of horse, and -instruct him in the Dutch mode of cutting asparagus. By this last phrase -hangs an anecdote of later days. Faulkner, the Dublin printer, was dining -with Swift, and on asking for a second supply of asparagus, was told by -the Dean to finish what he had on his plate. "What, sir, eat my stalks!" -"Ay, sir; King William always ate his stalks." "And were you," asked -Faulkner's hearer when he related the story, "were you blockhead enough to -obey him?" "Yes," replied Faulkner, "and if you had dined with Dean Swift -_tête-à-tête_ you would have been obliged to eat your stalks too!" For the -present Swift was the recipient not the imposer of stalks; and was to -receive the first shock, as he tells us, that helped to cure him of his -vanity. The question of the Triennial Bill was agitating political -personages in the early months of 1693. William and his favourite -minister, the Earl of Portland, found their Dutch experience insufficient -to guide them in the mysteries of English constitutionalism. Portland came -down to consult Temple at Moor Park; and Swift was sent back to explain to -the great men that Charles I. had been ruined not by consenting to short -Parliaments, but by abandoning the right to dissolve Parliament. Swift -says that he was "well versed in English history, though he was under -twenty-one years old." (He was really twenty-five, but memory naturally -exaggerated his youthfulness). His arguments, however backed by history, -failed to carry conviction, and Swift had to unlearn some of the youthful -confidence which assumes that reason is the governing force in this world, -and that reason means our own opinions. That so young a man should have -been employed on such an errand, shows that Temple must have had a good -opinion of his capacities; but his want of success, however natural, was -felt as a grave discouragement. - -That his discontent was growing is clear from other indications. Swift's -early poems, whatever their defects, have one merit common to all his -writings--the merit of a thorough, sometimes an appalling, sincerity. Two -poems which begin to display his real vigour are dated at the end of 1693. -One is an epistle to his schoolfellow, Congreve, expatiating, as some -consolation for the cold reception of the _Double Dealer_, upon the -contemptible nature of town critics. Swift describes, as a type of the -whole race, a Farnham lad who had left school a year before, and had just -returned a "finished spark" from London. - - Stock'd with the latest gibberish of the town, - -This wretched little fop came in an evil hour to provoke Swift's hate,-- - - My hate, whose lash just heaven has long decreed - Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed. - -And he already applies it with vigour enough to show that with some of the -satirist's power he has also the indispensable condition of a considerable -accumulation of indignant wrath against the self-appointed arbiters of -taste. The other poem is more remarkable in its personal revelation. It -begins as a congratulation to Temple on his recovery from an illness. It -passes into a description of his own fate, marked by singular bitterness. -He addresses his muse as-- - - Malignant Goddess! bane to my repose, - Thou universal cause of all my woes. - -She is, it seems, a mere delusive meteor, with no real being of her own. -But, if real, why does she persecute him? - - Wert thou right woman, thou should'st scorn to look - On an abandon'd wretch by hopes forsook: - Forsook by hopes, ill fortune's last relief, - Assign'd for life to unremitting grief; - For let heaven's wrath enlarge these weary days - If hope e'er dawns the smallest of its rays. - -And he goes on to declare after some vigorous lines, - - To thee I owe that fatal bent of mind, - Still to unhappy restless thoughts inclined: - To thee what oft I vainly strive to hide, - That scorn of fools, by fools mistook for pride; - From thee whatever virtue takes its rise, - Grows a misfortune, or becomes a vice. - -The sudden gush as of bitter waters into the dulcet, insipid current of -conventional congratulation, gives additional point to the sentiment. -Swift expands the last couplet into a sentiment which remained with him -through life. It is a blending of pride and remorse; a regretful admission -of the loftiness of spirit which has caused his misfortunes; and we are -puzzled to say whether the pride or the remorse be the most genuine. For -Swift always unites pride and remorse in his consciousness of his own -virtues. - -The "restlessness" avowed in these verses took the practical form of a -rupture with Temple. In his autobiographical fragment he says that he had -a scruple of entering into the church merely for support, and Sir William, -then being Master of the Rolls in Ireland,[6] offered him an employ of -about 120_l._ a year in that office; whereupon Mr. Swift told him that -since he had now an opportunity of living without being driven into the -church for a maintenance, he was resolved to go to Ireland and take holy -orders. If the scruple seems rather finely spun for Swift, the sense of -the dignity of his profession is thoroughly characteristic. Nothing, -however, is more deceptive than our memory of the motives which directed -distant actions. In his contemporary letters there is no hint of any -scruple against preferment in the church, but a decided objection to -insufficient preferment. It is possible that Swift was confusing dates, -and that the scruple was quieted when he failed to take advantage of -Temple's interest with Southwell. Having declined, he felt that he had -made a free choice of a clerical career. In 1692, as we have seen, he -expected a prebend from Temple's influence with William. But his doubts of -Temple's desire or power to serve him were confirmed. In June, 1694, he -tells a cousin at Lisbon, "I have left Sir W. Temple a month ago, just as -I foretold it you; and everything happened exactly as I guessed. He was -extremely angry I left him; and yet would not oblige himself any further -than upon my good behaviour, nor would promise anything firmly to me at -all; so that everybody judged I did best to leave him." He is starting in -four days for Dublin, and intends to be ordained in September. The next -letter preserved completes the story, and implies a painful change in this -cavalier tone of injured pride. Upon going to Dublin, Swift had found that -some recommendation from Temple would be required by the authorities. He -tried to evade the requirement, but was forced at last to write a letter -to Temple, which nothing but necessity could have extorted. After -explaining the case, he adds, "the particulars expected of me are what -relates to morals and learning, and the reasons of quitting your honour's -family, that is whether the last was occasioned by any ill actions. They -are all left entirely to your honour's mercy, though in the past I think I -cannot reproach myself any farther than for _infirmities_. This," he adds, -"is all I dare beg at present from your honour, under circumstances of -life not worth your regard;" and all that is left him to wish ("next to -the health and prosperity of your honour's family") is that Heaven will -show him some day the opportunity of making his acknowledgments at "your -honour's" feet. This seems to be the only occasion on which we find Swift -confessing to any fault except that of being too virtuous. - -The apparent doubt of Temple's magnanimity implied in the letter was -happily not verified. The testimonial seems to have been sent at once. -Swift, in any case, was ordained deacon on the 28th of October, 1694, and -priest on the 15th of January, 1695. Probably Swift felt that Temple had -behaved with magnanimity, and in any case it was not very long before he -returned to Moor Park. He had received from Lord Capel, then lord deputy, -the small prebend of Kilroot, worth about 100_l._ a year. Little is known -of his life as a remote country clergyman, except that he very soon became -tired of it.[7] Swift soon resigned his prebend (in March, 1698) and -managed to obtain the succession for a friend in the neighbourhood. But -before this (in May, 1696) he had returned to Moor Park. He had grown -weary of a life in a remote district, and Temple had raised his offers. He -was glad to be once more on the edge at least of the great world in which -alone could be found employment worthy of his talents. One other -incident, indeed, of which a fuller account would be interesting, is -connected with this departure. On the eve of his departure, he wrote a -passionate letter to "Varina," in plain English Miss Waring, sister of an -old college chum. He "solemnly offers to forego all" (all his English -prospects, that is) "for her sake." He does not want her fortune; she -shall live where she pleases; till he has "pushed his advancement" and is -in a position to marry her. The letter is full of true lovers' -protestations; reproaches for her coldness; hints at possible causes of -jealousies; declarations of the worthlessness of ambition as compared with -love; and denunciations of her respect for the little disguises and -affected contradictions of her sex, infinitely beneath persons of her -pride and his own; paltry maxims calculated only for the "rabble of -humanity." "By heaven, Varina," he exclaims, "you are more experienced, -and have less virgin innocence than I." The answer must have been -unsatisfactory; though from expressions in a letter to his successor to -the prebend, we see that the affair was still going on in 1699. It will -come to light once more. - -Swift was thus at Moor Park in the summer of 1696. He remained till -Temple's death in January, 1699. We hear no more of any friction between -Swift and his patron; and it seems that the last years of their connexion -passed in harmony. Temple was growing old; his wife, after forty years of -a happy marriage, had died during Swift's absence in the beginning of -1695; and Temple, though he seems to have been vigorous, and in spite of -gout a brisk walker, was approaching the grave. He occupied himself in -preparing, with Swift's help, memoirs and letters, which were left to -Swift for posthumous publication. Swift's various irritations at Moor -Park have naturally left a stronger impression upon his history than the -quieter hours in which worry and anxiety might be forgotten in the placid -occupations of a country life. That Swift enjoyed many such hours is -tolerably clear. Moor Park is described by a Swiss traveller who visited -it about 1691,[8] as the "model of an agreeable retreat." Temple's -household was free from the coarse convivialities of the boozing -fox-hunting squires; whilst the recollection of its modest neatness made -the "magnificent palace" of Petworth seem pompous and overpowering. Swift -himself remembered the Moor Park gardens, the special pride of Temple's -retirement, with affection, and tried to imitate them on a small scale in -his own garden at Laracor. Moor Park is on the edge of the great heaths -which stretch southward to Hindhead, and northwards to Aldershot and -Chobham Ridges. Though we can scarcely credit him with a modern taste in -scenery, he at least anticipated the modern faith in athletic exercises. -According to Deane Swift, he used to run up a hill near Temple's and back -again to his study every two hours, doing the distance of half a mile in -six minutes. In later life he preached the duty of walking with admirable -perseverance to his friends. He joined other exercises occasionally. "My -Lord," he says to Archbishop King in 1721, "I row after health like a -waterman, and ride after it like a postboy, and with some little success." -But he had the characteristic passion of the good and wise for walking. He -mentions incidentally a walk from Farnham to London, thirty-eight miles; -and has some association with the Golden Farmer[9]--a point on the road -from which there is still one of the loveliest views in the southern -counties, across undulating breadths of heath and meadow, woodland and -down, to Windsor Forest, St. George's Hill, and the chalk range from -Guildford to Epsom. Perhaps he might have been a mountaineer in more -civilized times; his poem on the Carberry rocks seems to indicate a lover -of such scenery; and he ventured so near the edge of the cliff upon his -stomach, that his servants had to drag him back by his heels. We find him -proposing to walk to Chester at the rate, I regret to say, of only ten -miles a day. In such rambles, we are told, he used to put up at wayside -inns, where "lodgings for a penny" were advertised; bribing the maid with -a tester to give him clean sheets and a bed to himself. The love of the -rough humour of waggoners and hostlers is supposed to have been his -inducement to this practice; and the refined Orrery associates his -coarseness with this lamentable practice; but amidst the roar of railways -we may think more tolerantly of the humours of the road in the good old -days, when each village had its humours and traditions and quaint legends, -and when homely maxims of unlettered wisdom were to be picked up at rustic -firesides. - -Recreations of this kind were a relief to serious study. In Temple's -library Swift found abundant occupation. "I am often," he says, in the -first period of his residence, "two or three months without seeing anybody -besides the family." In a later fragment, we find him living alone "in -great state," the cook coming for his orders for dinner, and the -revolutions in the kingdom of the rooks amusing his leisure. The results -of his studies will be considered directly. A list of books read in 1697 -gives some hint of their general nature. They are chiefly classical and -historical. He read Virgil, Homer, Horace, Lucretius, Cicero's -_Epistles_, Petronius Arbiter, Ælian, Lucius Florus, Herbert's _Henry -VIII._, Sleidan's _Commentaries, Council of Trent_, Camden's _Elizabeth_, -Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, Voiture, Blackmore's _Prince -Arthur_, Sir J. Davis's poem of _The Soul_, and two or three travels, -besides Cyprian and Irenæus. We may note the absence of any theological -reading, except in the form of ecclesiastical history; nor does Swift -study philosophy, of which he seems to have had a sufficient dose in -Dublin. History seems always to have been his favourite study, and it -would naturally have a large part in Temple's library. - -One matter of no small importance to Swift remains to be mentioned. -Temple's family included other dependents besides Swift. The "little -parson cousin," Tom Swift, whom his great relation always mentions with -contempt, became chaplain to Temple. Jonathan's sister was for some time -at Moor Park. But the inmates of the family most interesting to us were a -Rebecca Dingley--who was in some way related to the family--and Esther -Johnson. Esther Johnson was the daughter of a merchant of respectable -family who died young. Her mother was known to Lady Giffard, Temple's -attached sister; and after her widowhood, went with her two daughters to -live with the Temples. Mrs. Johnson lived as servant or companion to Lady -Giffard for many years after Temple's death; and little Esther, a -remarkably bright and pretty child, was brought up in the family, and -received under Temple's will a sufficient legacy for her support. It -was of course guessed by a charitable world that she was a natural -child of Sir William's; but there seems to be no real ground for the -hypothesis.[10] She was born, as Swift tells us, on March 13th, 1681; and -was therefore a little over eight when Swift first came to Temple, and -fifteen when he returned from Kilroot.[11] About this age, he tells us, -she got over an infantile delicacy, "grew into perfect health, and was -looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young -women in London. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of -her face in perfection." Her conduct and character were equally -remarkable, if we may trust the tutor who taught her to write, guided her -education, and came to regard her with an affection which was at once the -happiness and the misery of his life. - -Temple died January 26, 1699; and "with him," said Swift at the time, "all -that was good and amiable among men." The feeling was doubtless sincere, -though Swift, when moved very deeply, used less conventional phrases. He -was thrown once more upon the world. The expectations of some settlement -in life had not been realized. Temple had left him 100_l._, the advantage -of publishing his posthumous works, which might ultimately bring in -200_l._ more, and a promise of preferment from the king. Swift had lived -long enough upon the "chameleon's food." His energies were still running -to waste; and he suffered the misery of a weakness due, not to want of -power but want of opportunity. His sister writes to a cousin that her -brother had lost his best friend, who had induced him to give up his Irish -preferment by promising preferment in England, and had died before the -promise had been fulfilled. Swift was accused of ingratitude by Lord -Palmerston, Temple's nephew, some thirty-five years later. In reply, he -acknowledged an obligation to Temple for the recommendation to William and -the legacy of his papers; but he adds, "I hope you will not charge my -living in his family as an obligation; for I was educated to little -purpose if I retired to his house for any other motives than the benefit -of his conversation and advice, and the opportunity of pursuing my -studies. For, being born to no fortune, I was at his death as far to seek -as ever; and perhaps you will allow that I was of some use to him." Swift -seems here to assume that his motives for living with Temple are -necessarily to be estimated by the results which he obtained. But if he -expected more than he got, he does not suggest any want of goodwill. -Temple had done his best; William's neglect and Temple's death had made -goodwill fruitless. The two might cry quits; and Swift set to work, not -exactly with a sense of injury, but probably with a strong feeling that a -large portion of his life had been wasted. To Swift, indeed, misfortune -and injury seem equally to have meant resentment, whether against the -fates or some personal object. - -One curious document must be noted before considering the writings which -most fully reveal the state of Swift's mind. In the year 1699 he wrote -down some resolutions, headed "when I come to be old." They are for the -most part pithy and sensible, if it can ever be sensible to make -resolutions for behaviour in a distant future. Swift resolves not to marry -a young woman, not to keep young company unless they desire it, not to -repeat stories, not to listen to knavish, tattling servants, not to be too -free of advice, not to brag of former beauty and favour with ladies, to -desire some good friends to inform him when he breaks these resolutions -and to reform accordingly; and finally, not to set up for observing all -these rules for fear he should observe none. These resolutions are not -very original in substance (few resolutions are), though they suggest some -keen observation of his elders; but one is more remarkable. "Not to be -fond of children, _or let them come near me hardly_." The words in italics -are blotted out by a later possessor of the paper, shocked doubtless at -the harshness of the sentiment. "We do not fortify ourselves with -resolutions against what we dislike," says a friendly commentator, "but -against what we feel in our weakness we have reason to believe we are -really too much inclined to." Yet it is strange that a man should regard -the purest and kindliest of feelings as a weakness to which he is too much -inclined. No man had stronger affections than Swift; no man suffered more -agony when they were wounded; but in his agony he would commit what to -most men would seem the treason of cursing the affections instead of -simply lamenting the injury, or holding the affection itself to be its own -sufficient reward. The intense personality of the man reveals itself -alternately at selfishness and as "altruism." He grappled to his heart -those whom he really loved "as with hoops of steel;" so firmly that they -became a part of himself; and that he considered himself at liberty to -regard his love of friends as he might regard a love of wine, as something -to be regretted when it was too strong for his own happiness. The -attraction was intense; but implied the absorption of the weaker nature -into his own. His friendships were rather annexations than alliances. The -strongest instance of this characteristic was in his relations to the -charming girl, who must have been in his mind when he wrote this strange, -and unconsciously prophetic, resolution. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -EARLY WRITINGS. - - -Swift came to Temple's house as a raw student. He left it as the author of -one of the most remarkable satires ever written. His first efforts had -been unpromising enough. Certain _Pindaric Odes_, in which the youthful -aspirant imitated the still popular model of Cowley, are even comically -prosaic. The last of them, dated 1691, is addressed to a queer Athenian -Society, promoted by a John Dunton, a speculative bookseller, whose _Life -and Errors_ is still worth a glance from the curious. The Athenian Society -was the name of John Dunton himself, and two or three collaborators who -professed in the _Athenian Mercury_ to answer queries ranging over the -whole field of human knowledge. Temple was one of their patrons, and Swift -sent them a panegyrical ode, the merits of which are sufficiently summed -up by Dryden's pithy criticism--"Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." -Swift disliked and abused Dryden ever afterwards, though he may have had -better reasons for his enmity than the child's dislike to bitter medicine. -Later poems, the _Epistle to Congreve_ and that to Temple already quoted, -show symptoms of growing power and a clearer self-recognition. In Swift's -last residence with Temple, he proved unmistakably that he had learnt the -secret often so slowly revealed to great writers, the secret of his real -strength. The _Tale of a Tub_ was written about 1696; part of it appears -to have been seen at Kilroot by his friend, Waring, Varina's brother; the -_Battle of the Books_ was written in 1697. It is a curious proof of -Swift's indifference to a literary reputation that both works remained in -manuscript till 1704. The "little parson cousin" Tom Swift, ventured some -kind of claim to a share in the authorship of the _Tale of a Tub_. Swift -treated this claim with the utmost contempt, but never explicitly claimed -for himself the authorship of what some readers hold to be his most -powerful work. - -The _Battle of the Books_, to which we may first attend, sprang out of the -famous controversy as to the relative merits of the ancients and moderns, -which began in France with Perrault and Fontenelle; which had been set -going in England by Sir W. Temple's essay upon ancient and modern learning -(1692), and which incidentally led to the warfare between Bentley and -Wotton on one side, and Boyle and his Oxford allies on the other. A full -account of this celebrated discussion may be found in Professor Jebb's -_Bentley_; and, as Swift only took the part of a light skirmisher, nothing -more need be said of it in this place. One point alone is worth notice. -The eagerness of the discussion is characteristic of a time at which the -modern spirit was victoriously revolting against the ancient canons of -taste and philosophy. At first sight, we might therefore expect the -defenders of antiquity to be on the side of authority. In fact, however, -the argument, as Swift takes it from Temple, is reversed. Temple's theory, -so far as he had any consistent theory, is indicated in the statement that -the moderns gathered "all their learning from books in the universities." -Learning, he suggests, may weaken invention; and people who trust to the -charity of others will always be poor. Swift accepts and enforces this -doctrine. The _Battle of the Books_ is an expression of that contempt for -pedants which he had learnt in Dublin, and which is expressed in the ode -to the Athenian Society. Philosophy, he tells us in that precious -production, "seems to have borrowed some ungrateful taste of doubts, -impertinence, and niceties from every age through which it passed" (this, -I may observe, is verse), and is now a "medley of all ages," "her face -patched over with modern pedantry." The moral finds a more poetical -embodiment in the famous apologue of the Bee and the Spider in the _Battle -of the Books_. The bee had got itself entangled in the spider's web in the -library, whilst the books were beginning to wrangle. The two have a sharp -dispute, which is summed up by Æsop as arbitrator. The spider represents -the moderns who spin their scholastic pedantry out of their own insides; -whilst the bee, like the ancients, goes direct to nature. The moderns -produce nothing but "wrangling and satire, much of a nature with the -spider's poison, which however they pretend to spit wholly out of -themselves is improved by the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and -vermin of the age." We, the ancients, "profess to nothing of our own, -beyond our wings and our voice: that is to say, our flights and our -language. For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labour -and research, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference -is that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our -hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of -things, which are Sweetness and Light." - -The Homeric battle which follows is described with infinite spirit. Pallas -is the patron of the ancients whilst Momus undertakes the cause of the -moderns, and appeals for help to the malignant deity Criticism, who is -found in her den at the top of a snowy mountain, extended upon the spoils -of numberless half-devoured volumes. By her, as she exclaims in the -regulation soliloquy, children become wiser than their parents, beaux -become politicians, and schoolboys judges of philosophy. She flies to her -darling Wotton, gathering up her person into an octavo compass; her body -grows white and arid and splits in pieces with dryness; a concoction of -gall and soot is strewn in the shape of letters upon her person; and so -she joins the moderns, "undistinguishable in shape and dress from the -divine Bentley, Wotton's dearest friend." It is needless to follow the -fortunes of the fight which follows; it is enough to observe that Virgil -is encountered by his translator Dryden in a helmet "nine times too large -for the head, which appeared situate far in the hinder part, even like the -lady in the lobster, or like a mouse under a canopy of state, or like a -shrivelled beau within the penthouse of a modern periwig, and the voice -was suited to the visage, sounding weak and remote;" and that the book is -concluded by an episode, in which Bentley and Wotton try a diversion and -steal the armour of Phalaris and Æsop, but are met by Boyle, clad in a -suit of armour given him by all the gods, who transfixes them on his spear -like a brace of woodcocks on an iron skewer. - -The raillery, if taken in its critical aspect, recoils upon the author. -Dryden hardly deserves the scorn of Virgil; and Bentley, as we know, made -short work of Phalaris and Boyle. But Swift probably knew and cared little -for the merits of the controversy. He expresses his contempt with -characteristic vigour and coarseness; and our pleasure in his display of -exuberant satirical power is not injured by his obvious misconception of -the merits of the case. The unflagging spirit of the writing, the -fertility and ingenuity of the illustrations, do as much as can be done to -give lasting vitality to what is radically (to my taste at least) a rather -dreary form of wit. The _Battle of the Books_ is the best of the -travesties. Nor in the brilliant assault upon great names do we at present -see anything more than the buoyant consciousness of power, common in the -unsparing judgments of youth, nor edged as yet by any real bitterness. -Swift has found out that the world is full of humbugs; and goes forth -hewing and hacking with super-abundant energy, not yet aware that he too -may conceivably be a fallible being, and still less that the humbugs may -some day prove too strong for him. - -The same qualities are more conspicuous in the far greater satire the -_Tale of a Tub_. It is so striking a performance that Johnson, who -cherished one of his stubborn prejudices against Swift, doubted whether -Swift could have written it. "There is in it," he said, "such a vigour of -mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life." The -doubt is clearly without the least foundation, and the estimate upon which -it is based is generally disputed. The _Tale of a Tub_ has certainly not -achieved a reputation equal to that of _Gulliver's Travels_, to the merits -of which Johnson was curiously blind. Yet I think that there is this much -to be said in favour of Johnson's theory, namely, that Swift's style -reaches its highest point in the earlier work. There is less flagging; a -greater fulness and pressure of energetic thought; a power of hitting the -nail on the head at the first blow, which has declined in the work of his -maturer years, when life was weary and thought intermittent. Swift seems -to have felt this himself. In the twilight of his intellect, he was seen -turning over the pages and murmuring to himself, "Good God, what a genius -I had when I wrote that book!" In an apology (dated 1709) he makes a -statement which may help to explain this fact. "The author," he says, "was -then (1696) young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in -his head. By the assistance of some thinking and much conversation, he had -endeavoured to strip himself of as many prejudices as he could." He -resolved, as he adds, "to proceed in a manner entirely new;" and he -afterwards claims in the most positive terms that through the whole book -(including both the tale and the battle of the books) he has not borrowed -one "single hint from any writer in the world."[12] No writer has ever -been more thoroughly original than Swift, for his writings are simply -himself. - -The _Tale of a Tub_ is another challenge thrown down to pretentious -pedantry. The vigorous, self-confident intellect has found out the -emptiness and absurdity of a number of the solemn formulæ which pass -current in the world, and tears them to pieces with audacious and -rejoicing energy. He makes a mock of the paper chains with which solemn -professors tried to fetter his activity, and scatters the fragments to the -four winds of heaven. In one of the first sections he announces the -philosophy afterwards expounded by Herr Teufelsdröckh, according to which -"man himself is but a micro-coat;" if one of the suits of clothes called -animals "be trimmed up with a gold chain, and a red gown, and a white rod, -and a pert look, it is called a Lord Mayor; if certain ermines and furs be -placed in a certain position, we style them a judge; and so an apt -conjunction of lawn and black satin we entitle a bishop." Though Swift -does not himself develop this philosophical doctrine, its later form -reflects light upon the earlier theory. For, in truth, Swift's teaching -comes to this, that the solemn plausibilities of the world are but so many -"shams"--elaborate masks used to disguise the passions, for the most part -base and earthly, by which mankind is really impelled. The "digressions" -which he introduces with the privilege of a humorist, bear chiefly upon -the literary sham. He falls foul of the whole population of Grub Street at -starting, and (as I may note in passing) incidentally gives a curious hint -of his authorship. He describes himself as a worn-out pamphleteer who has -worn his quill to the pith in the service of the State. "Fourscore and -eleven pamphlets have I writ under the reigns and for the service of -six-and-thirty patrons." Porson first noticed that the same numbers are -repeated in _Gulliver's Travels_; Gulliver is fastened with "fourscore and -eleven chains" locked to his left leg "with six-and-thirty padlocks." -Swift makes the usual onslaught of a young author upon the critics, with -more than the usual vigour, and carries on the war against Bentley and his -ally by parodying Wotton's remarks upon the ancients. He has discovered -many omissions in Homer; "who seems to have read but very superficially -either Sendivogus, Behmen, or _Anthroposophia Magia_."[13] Homer, too, -never mentions a saveall; and has a still worse fault--his "gross -ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine as well as -discipline of the Church of England"--defects, indeed, for which he has -been justly censured by Wotton. Perhaps the most vigorous and certainly -the most striking of these digressions, is that upon "the original use and -improvement of madness in a commonwealth." Just in passing, as it were, -Swift gives the pith of a whole system of misanthropy, though he as yet -seems to be rather indulging a play of fancy, than expressing a settled -conviction. Happiness, he says, is a "perpetual possession of being well -deceived." The wisdom which keeps on the surface is better than that which -persists in officiously prying into the underlying reality. "Last week I -saw a woman flayed," he observes, "and you will hardly believe how much it -altered her person for the worse." It is best to be content with patching -up the outside, and so assuring the "serene, peaceful state"--the -sublimest point of felicity--"of being a fool amongst knaves." He goes on -to tell us how useful madmen may be made: how Curtius may be regarded -equally as a madman and a hero for his leap into the gulf; how the raging, -blaspheming, noisy inmate of Bedlam is fit to have a regiment of dragoons; -and the bustling, sputtering, bawling madman should be sent to Westminster -Hall; and the solemn madman, dreaming dreams and seeing best in the dark, -to preside over a congregation of dissenters; and how elsewhere you may -find the raw material of the merchant, the courtier, or the monarch. We -are all madmen, and happy so far as mad: delusion and peace of mind go -together; and the more truth we know, the more shall we recognize that -realities are hideous. Swift only plays with his paradoxes. He laughs -without troubling himself to decide whether his irony tells against the -theories which he ostensibly espouses, or those which he ostensibly -attacks. But he has only to adopt in seriousness the fancy with which he -is dallying, in order to graduate as a finished pessimist. These, however, -are interruptions to the main thread of the book, which is a daring -assault upon that serious kind of pedantry which utters itself in -theological systems. The three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, -represent, as we all know, the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the -Puritanical varieties of Christianity. They start with a new coat provided -for each by their father, and a will to explain the right mode of wearing -it; and after some years of faithful observance, they fall in love with -the three ladies of wealth, ambition, and pride, get into terribly bad -ways and make wild work of the coats and the will. They excuse themselves -for wearing shoulder-knots by picking the separate letters S, H, and so -forth, out of separate words in the will, and as K is wanting, discover it -to be synonymous with C. They reconcile themselves to gold lace by -remembering that when they were boys they heard a fellow say that he had -heard their father's man say that he would advise his sons to get gold -lace when they had money enough to buy it. Then, as the will becomes -troublesome in spite of exegetical ingenuity, the eldest brother finds a -convenient codicil which can be tacked to it, and will sanction a new -fashion of flame-coloured satin. The will expressly forbids silver fringe -on the coats; but they discover that the word meaning silver fringe may -also signify a broomstick. And by such devices they go on merrily for a -time, till Peter sets up to be the sole heir and insists upon the -obedience of his brethren. His performances in this position are trying to -their temper. "Whenever it happened that any rogue of Newgate was -condemned to be hanged, Peter would offer him a pardon for a certain sum -of money; which when the poor caitiff had made all shifts to scrape up and -send, his lordship would return a piece of paper in this form. - -"'To all mayors, sheriffs, jailors, constables, bailiffs, hangmen, &c. -Whereas we are informed that A. B. remains in the hands of you or some of -you, under the sentence of death: We will and command you, upon sight -hereof to let the said prisoner depart to his own habitation whether he -stands condemned for murder, &c., &c., for which this shall be your -sufficient warrant; and if you fail hereof, God damn you and yours to all -eternity; and so we bid you heartily farewell. Your most humble man's man, -Emperor Peter.' - -"The wretches, trusting to this, lost their lives and their money too." -Peter, however, became outrageously proud. He has been seen to take "three -old high-crowned hats and clap them all on his head three-storey high, -with a huge bunch of keys at his girdle, and an angling-rod in his hand. -In which guise, whoever went to take him by the hand in the way of -salutation, Peter, with much grace, like a well-educated spaniel, would -present them with his foot; and if they refused his civility, then he -would raise it as high as their chops, and give him a damned kick on the -mouth, which has ever since been called a salute." - -Peter receives his brothers at dinner, and has nothing served up but a -brown loaf. Come, he says, "fall on and spare not; here is excellent good -mutton," and he helps them each to a shoe. The brothers remonstrate, and -try to point out that they see only bread. They argue for some time, but -have to give in to a conclusive argument. "'Look ye, gentlemen,' cries -Peter in a rage, 'to convince you what a couple of blind, positive, -ignorant, wilful puppies you are, I will use but this simple argument. By -G-- it is true, good, natural mutton as any in Leadenhall Market; and -G-- confound you both eternally, if you offer to believe otherwise.' Such a -thundering proof as this left no further room for objection; the two -unbelievers began to gather and pocket up their mistake as hastily as they -could," and have to admit besides that another large dry crust is true -juice of the grape. - -The brothers Jack and Martin afterwards fall out: and Jack is treated to a -storm of ridicule much in the same vein as that directed against Peter; -and, if less pointed, certainly not less expressive of contempt. I need -not further follow the details of what Johnson calls this "wild book," -which is in every page brimful of intense satirical power. I must however -say a few words upon a matter which is of great importance in forming a -clear judgment of Swift's character. The _Tale of a Tub_ was universally -attributed to Swift, and led to many doubts of his orthodoxy and even of -his Christianity. Sharpe, Archbishop of York, injured Swift's chances of -preferment by insinuating such doubts to Queen Anne. Swift bitterly -resented the imputation. He prefixed an apology to a later edition, in -which he admitted that he had said some rash things; but declared that he -would forfeit his life if any one opinion contrary to morality or religion -could be fairly deduced from the book. He pointed out that he had -attacked no Anglican doctrine. His ridicule spares Martin, and is pointed -at Peter and Jack. Like every satirist who ever wrote, he does not attack -the use but the abuse; and as the Church of England represents for him the -purest embodiment of the truth, an attack upon the abuses of religion -meant an attack upon other churches only in so far as they diverged from -this model. Critics have accepted this apology, and treated poor Queen -Anne and her advisers as representing simply the prudery of the tea-table. -The question, to my thinking, does not admit of quite so simple an answer. - -If, in fact, we ask what is the true object of Swift's audacious satire, -the answer will depend partly upon our own estimate of the truth. Clearly -it ridicules "abuses;" but one man's use is another's abuse: and a dogma -may appear to us venerable or absurd according to our own creed. One test, -however, may be suggested, which may guide our decision. Imagine the _Tale -of a Tub_ to be read by Bishop Butler and by Voltaire, who called Swift a -_Rabelais perfectionné_. Can any one doubt that the believer would be -scandalized and the scoffer find himself in a thoroughly congenial -element? Would not any believer shrink from the use of such weapons even -though directed against his enemies? Scott urges that the satire was -useful to the high church party because, as he says, it is important for -any institution in Britain (or anywhere else, we may add) to have the -laughers on its side. But Scott was too sagacious not to indicate the -obvious reply. The condition of having the laughers on your side is to be -on the side of the laughers. Advocates of any serious cause feel that -there is a danger in accepting such an alliance. The laughers who join you -in ridiculing your enemy, are by no means pledged to refrain from -laughing in turn at the laugher. When Swift had ridiculed all the Catholic -and all the Puritan dogmas in the most unsparing fashion, could he be sure -that the Thirty-nine Articles would escape scot free? The Catholic theory -of a church possessing divine authority, the Puritan theory of a divine -voice addressing the individual soul, suggested to him, in their concrete -embodiments at least, nothing but a horselaugh. Could any one be sure that -the Anglican embodiment of the same theories might not be turned to equal -account by the scoffer? Was the true bearing of Swift's satire in fact -limited to the deviations from sound Church of England doctrine, or might -it not be directed against the very vital principle of the doctrine -itself? - -Swift's blindness to such criticisms was thoroughly characteristic. He -professes, as we have seen, that he had need to clear his mind of _real_ -prejudices. He admits that the process might be pushed too far; that is, -that in abandoning a prejudice you may be losing a principle. In fact, the -prejudices from which Swift had sought to free himself--and no doubt with -great success--were the prejudices of other people. For them he felt -unlimited contempt. But the prejudice which had grown up in his mind, -strengthened with his strength, and become intertwined with all his -personal affections and antipathies, was no longer a prejudice in his -eyes, but a sacred principle. The intensity of his contempt for the -follies of others shut his eyes effectually to any similarity between -their tenets and his own. His principles, true or false, were prejudices -in the highest degree, if by a prejudice we mean an opinion cherished -because it has somehow or other become ours, though the "somehow" may -exclude all reference to reason. Swift never troubled himself to assign -any philosophical basis for his doctrines; having, indeed, a hearty -contempt for philosophizing in general. He clung to the doctrines of his -church, not because he could give abstract reasons for his belief, but -simply because the church happened to be his. It is equally true of all -his creeds, political or theological, that he loved them as he loved his -friends, simply because they had become a part of himself, and were -therefore identified with all his hopes, ambitions, and aspirations public -or private. We shall see hereafter how fiercely he attacked the -dissenters, and how scornfully he repudiated all arguments founded upon -the desirability of union amongst Protestants. To a calm outside observer -differences might appear to be superficial; but to him, no difference -could be other than radical and profound which in fact divided him from an -antagonist. In attacking the Presbyterians, cried more temperate people, -you are attacking your brothers and your own opinions. No, replied Swift, -I am attacking the corruption of my principles; hideous caricatures of -myself; caricatures the more hateful in proportion to their apparent -likeness. And therefore, whether in political or theological warfare, he -was sublimely unconscious of the possible reaction of his arguments. - -Swift took a characteristic mode of showing that if upon some points he -accidentally agreed with the unbeliever, it was not from any covert -sympathy. Two of his most vigorous pieces of satire in later days are -directed against the deists. In 1708 he published an _Argument to prove -that the abolishing of Christianity in England may, as things now stand, -be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many -good effects proposed thereby_. And in 1713, in the midst of his most -eager political warfare, he published _Mr. Collins's Discourse of -Freethinking, put into plain English, by way of abstract, for use of the -poor_. No one who reads these pamphlets can deny that the keenest satire -may be directed against infidels as well as against Christians. The last -is an admirable parody, in which poor Collins's arguments are turned -against himself with ingenious and provoking irony. The first is perhaps -Swift's cleverest application of the same method. A nominal religion, he -urges gravely, is of some use, for if men cannot be allowed a God to -revile or renounce, they will speak evil of dignities, and may even come -to "reflect upon the ministry." If Christianity were once abolished, the -wits would be deprived of their favourite topic. "Who would ever have -suspected Asgil for a wit or Toland for a philosopher if the inexhaustible -stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with -materials?" The abolition of Christianity moreover may possibly bring the -Church into danger, for atheists, deists, and Socinians have little zeal -for the present ecclesiastical establishment; and if they once get rid of -Christianity, they may aim at setting up Presbyterianism. Moreover, as -long as we keep to any religion, we do not strike at the root of the evil. -The freethinkers consider that all the parts hold together, and that if -you pull out one nail the whole fabric will fall. Which, he says, was -happily expressed by one who heard that a text brought in proof of the -Trinity, was differently read in some ancient manuscript; whereupon he -suddenly leaped through a long _sorites_ to the logical conclusion: "Why, -if it be as you say, I may safely ... drink on and defy the parson." - -A serious meaning underlies Swift's sarcasms. Collins had argued in -defence of the greatest possible freedom of discussion; and tacitly -assumed that such discussion would lead to disbelief of Christianity. -Opponents of the liberal school had answered by claiming his first -principle as their own. They argued that religion was based upon reason, -and would be strengthened instead of weakened by free inquiry. Swift -virtually takes a different position. He objects to freethinking because -ordinary minds are totally unfit for such inquiries. "The bulk of -mankind," as he puts it, is as "well qualified for flying as thinking;" -and therefore free-thought would lead to anarchy, atheism, and immorality, -as liberty to fly would lead to a breaking of necks. - -Collins rails at priests as tyrants upheld by imposture. Swift virtually -replies that they are the sole guides to truth and guardians of morality, -and that theology should be left to them, as medicine to physicians and -law to lawyers. The argument against the abolition of Christianity takes -the same ground. Religion, however little regard is paid to it in -practice, is in fact the one great security for a decent degree of social -order; and the rash fools who venture to reject what they do not -understand, are public enemies as well as ignorant sciolists. - -The same view is taken in Swift's sermons. He said of himself that he -could only preach political pamphlets. Several of the twelve sermons -preserved are in fact directly aimed at some of the political and social -grievances which he was habitually denouncing. If not exactly "pamphlets," -they are sermons in aid of pamphlets. Others are vigorous and sincere -moral discourses. One alone deals with a purely theological topic: the -doctrine of the Trinity. His view is simply that "men of wicked lives -would be very glad if there were no truth in Christianity at all." They -therefore cavil at the mysteries to find some excuse for giving up the -whole. He replies in effect that there most be mystery though not -contradiction, everywhere, and that if we do not accept humbly what is -taught in the Scriptures, we must give up Christianity, and consequently, -as he holds, all moral obligation, at once. The cavil is merely the -pretext of an evil conscience. Swift's religion thus partook of the -directly practical nature of his whole character. He was absolutely -indifferent to speculative philosophy. He was even more indifferent to the -mystical or imaginative aspects of religion. He loved downright concrete -realities, and was not the man to lose himself in an _Oh, altitudo!_ or in -any train of thought or emotion not directly bearing upon the actual -business of the world. Though no man had more pride in his order or love -of its privileges, Swift never emphasized his professional character. He -wished to be accepted as a man of the world and of business. He despised -the unpractical and visionary type, and the kind of religious utterance -congenial to men of that type was abhorrent to him. He shrank invariably -too from any display of his emotion, and would have felt the heartiest -contempt for the sentimentalism of his day. At once the proudest and most -sensitive of men, it was his imperative instinct to hide his emotions as -much as possible. In cases of great excitement, he retired into some -secluded corner, where, if he was forced to feel, he could be sure of -hiding his feelings. He always masks his strongest passions under some -ironical veil, and thus practised what his friends regarded as an inverted -hypocrisy. Delany tells us that he stayed for six months in Swift's house, -before discovering that the dean always read prayers to his servants at a -fixed hour in private. A deep feeling of solemnity showed itself in his -manner of performing public religious exercises, but Delany, a man of a -very different temperament, blames his friend for carrying his reserve in -all such matters to extremes. In certain respects Swift was ostentatious -enough; but this intense dislike to wearing his heart upon his sleeve, to -laying bare the secrets of his affections before unsympathetic eyes, is -one of his most indelible characteristics. Swift could never have felt the -slightest sympathy for the kind of preacher who courts applause by a -public exhibition of intimate joys and sorrows; and was less afraid of -suppressing some genuine emotion than of showing any in the slightest -degree unreal. - -Although Swift took in the main what may be called the political view of -religion, he did not by any means accept that view in its cynical form. He -did not, that is, hold, in Gibbon's famous phrase, that all religions were -equally false and equally useful. His religious instincts were as strong -and genuine as they were markedly undemonstrative. He came to take (I am -anticipating a little) a gloomy view of the world and of human nature. He -had the most settled conviction not only of the misery of human life but -of the feebleness of the good elements in the world. The bad and the -stupid are the best fitted for life, as we find it. Virtue is generally a -misfortune; the more we sympathize, the more cause we have for -wretchedness; our affections give us the purest kind of happiness, and yet -our affections expose us to sufferings which more than outweigh the -enjoyments. There is no such thing, he said in his decline, as "a fine old -gentleman;" if so and so had had either a mind or a body worth a farthing, -"they would have worn him out long ago." That became a typical sentiment -with Swift. His doctrine was, briefly, that: virtue was the one thing -which deserved love and admiration; and yet that virtue in this hideous -chaos of a world, involved misery and decay. What would be the logical -result of such a creed, I do not presume to say. Certainly, we should -guess, something more pessimistic or Manichæan than suits the ordinary -interpretation of Christian doctrine. But for Swift this state of mind -carried with it the necessity of clinging to some religious creed: not -because the creed held out promises of a better hereafter, for Swift was -too much absorbed in the present to dwell much upon such beliefs; but -rather because it provided him with some sort of fixed convictions in this -strange and disastrous muddle. If it did not give a solution in terms -intelligible to the human intellect, it encouraged the belief that some -solution existed. It justified him to himself for continuing to respect -morality, and for going on living, when all the game of life seemed to be -decidedly going in favour of the devil, and suicide to be the most -reasonable course. At least, it enabled him to associate himself with the -causes and principles which he recognized as the most ennobling element in -the world's "mad farce;" and to utter himself in formulæ consecrated by -the use of such wise and good beings as had hitherto shown themselves -amongst a wretched race. Placed in another situation, Swift no doubt might -have put his creed--to speak after the Clothes Philosophy--into a -different dress. The substance could not have been altered, unless his -whole character as well as his particular opinions had been profoundly -modified. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -LARACOR AND LONDON. - - -Swift at the age of thirty-one had gained a small amount of cash, and a -promise from William. He applied to the king, but the great man in whom he -trusted failed to deliver his petition; and, after some delay, he accepted -an invitation to become chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley, -just made one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. He acted as secretary on -the journey to Ireland: but upon reaching Dublin, Lord Berkeley gave the -post to another man, who had persuaded him that it was unfit for a -clergyman. Swift next claimed the deanery of Derry, which soon became -vacant. The secretary had been bribed by 1000_l._ from another candidate, -upon whom the deanery was bestowed: but Swift was told that he might still -have the preference for an equal bribe. Unable or unwilling to comply, he -took leave of Berkeley and the secretary, with the pithy remark, "God -confound you both for a couple of scoundrels." He was partly pacified, -however (February 1700), by the gift of Laracor, a village near Trim, some -twenty miles from Dublin. Two other small livings, and a prebend in the -cathedral of St. Patrick, made up a revenue of about 230_l._ a year.[14] -The income enabled him to live; but, in spite of the rigid economy which -he always practised, did not enable him to save. Marriage under such -circumstances would have meant the abandonment of an ambitious career. A -wife and family would have anchored him to his country parsonage. - -This may help to explain an unpleasant episode which followed. Poor Varina -had resisted Swift's entreaties, on the ground of her own ill-health and -Swift's want of fortune. She now, it seems, thought that the economical -difficulty was removed by Swift's preferment, and wished the marriage to -take place. Swift replied in a letter, which contains all our information: -and to which I can apply no other epithet than brutal. Some men might feel -bound to fulfil a marriage engagement, even when love had grown cold; -others might think it better to break it off in the interests of both -parties. Swift's plan was to offer to fulfil it on conditions so insulting -that no one with a grain of self-respect could accept. In his letter he -expresses resentment for Miss Waring's previous treatment of him; he -reproaches her bitterly with the company in which she lives--including, as -it seems, her mother; no young woman in the world with her income should -"dwindle away her health in such a sink and among such family -conversation." He explains that he is still poor; he doubts the -improvement of her own health; and he then says that if she will submit to -be educated so as to be capable of entertaining him: to accept all his -likes and dislikes: to soothe his ill-humour, and live cheerfully wherever -he pleases: he will take her without inquiring into her looks or her -income. "Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the other, is all I -look for." Swift could be the most persistent and ardent of friends. But, -when any one tried to enforce claims no longer congenial to his feelings, -the appeal to the galling obligation stung him into ferocity, and brought -out the most brutal side of his imperious nature. - -It was in the course of the next year that Swift took a step which has -sometimes been associated with this. The death of Temple had left Esther -Johnson homeless. The small fortune left to her by Temple consisted of an -Irish farm. Swift suggested to her that she and her friend Mrs. Dingley -would get better interest for their money, and live more cheaply, in -Ireland than in England. This change of abode naturally made people talk. -The little parson cousin asked (in 1706) whether Jonathan had been able to -resist the charms of the two ladies who had marched from Moor Park to -Dublin "with full resolution to engage him." Swift was now (1701) in his -thirty-fourth year, and Stella a singularly beautiful and attractive girl -of twenty. The anomalous connexion was close, and yet most carefully -guarded against scandal. In Swift's absence, the ladies occupied his -apartments at Dublin. When he and they were in the same place they took -separate lodgings. Twice, it seems, they accompanied him on visits to -England. But Swift never saw Esther Johnson except in presence of a third -person; and he incidentally declares in 1726--near the end of her -life--that he had not seen her in a morning "these dozen years, except -once or twice in a journey." The relations thus regulated remained -unaltered for several years to come. Swift's duties at Laracor were not -excessive. He reckons his congregation at fifteen persons, "most of them -gentle and all simple." He gave notice, says Orrery, that he would read -prayers every Wednesday and Friday. The congregation on the first -Wednesday consisted of himself and his clerk, and Swift began the service, -"Dearly beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me," and so forth. -This being attributed to Swift, is supposed to be an exquisite piece of -facetiousness; but we may hope that, as Scott gives us reason to think, it -was really one of the drifting jests that stuck for a time to the skirts -of the famous humorist. What is certain is, that Swift did his best, with -narrow means, to improve the living--rebuilt the house, laid out the -garden, increased the glebe from one acre to twenty, and endowed the -living with tithes bought by himself. He left the tithes on the remarkable -condition (suggested probably by his fears of Presbyterian ascendancy) -that, if another form of Christian religion should become the established -faith in this kingdom, they should go to the poor--excluding Jews, -Atheists, and infidels. Swift became attached to Laracor, and the gardens -which he planted in humble imitation of Moor Park; he made friends of some -of the neighbours; though he detested Trim, where "the people were as -great rascals as the gentlemen;" but Laracor was rather an occasional -retreat than a centre of his interests. During the following years Swift -was often at the castle at Dublin, and passed considerable periods in -London, leaving a curate in charge of the minute congregation at Laracor. - -He kept upon friendly terms with successive Viceroys. He had, as we have -seen, extorted a partial concession of his claims from Lord Berkeley. For -Lord Berkeley, if we may argue from a very gross lampoon, he can have felt -nothing but contempt. But he had a high respect for Lady Berkeley; and one -of the daughters, afterwards Lady Betty Germaine, a very sensible and -kindly woman, retained his friendship through life, and in letters written -long afterwards refers with evident fondness to the old days of -familiarity. He was intimate, again, with the family of the Duke of -Ormond, who became Lord Lieutenant in 1703, and, again, was the close -friend of one of the daughters. He was deeply grieved by her death a few -years later, soon after her marriage to Lord Ashburnham. "I hate life," he -says characteristically, "when I think it exposed to such accidents; and -to see so many thousand wretches burdening the earth when such as her die, -makes me think God did never intend life for a blessing." When Lord -Pembroke succeeded Ormond, Swift still continued chaplain, and carried on -a queer commerce of punning with Pembroke. It is the first indication of a -habit which lasted, as we shall see, through life. One might be tempted to -say, were it not for the conclusive evidence to the contrary, that this -love of the most mechanical variety of facetiousness implied an absence of -any true sense of humour. Swift, indeed, was giving proofs that he -possessed a full share of that ambiguous talent. It would be difficult to -find a more perfect performance of its kind than the poem by which he -amused the Berkeley family in 1700. It is the _Petition of Mrs. Frances -Harris_, a chambermaid, who had lost her purse, and whose peculiar style -of language, as well as the unsympathetic comments of her various -fellow-servants, are preserved with extraordinary felicity in a peculiar -doggerel invented for the purpose by Swift. One fancies that the famous -Mrs. Harris of Mrs. Gamp's reminiscences was a phantasmal descendant of -Swift's heroine. He lays bare the workings of the menial intellect with -the clearness of a master. - -Neither Laracor nor Dublin could keep Swift from London.[15] During the -ten years succeeding 1700, he must have passed over four in England. In -the last period mentioned he was acting as an agent for the Church of -Ireland. In the others he was attracted by pleasure or ambition. He had -already many introductions to London society, through Temple, through the -Irish Viceroys, and through Congreve, the most famous of then living wits. -A successful pamphlet, to be presently mentioned, helped his rise to fame. -London society was easy of access for a man of Swift's qualities. The -divisions of rank were doubtless more strongly marked than now. Yet -society was relatively so small, and concentrated in so small a space, -that admission into the upper circle meant an easy introduction to every -one worth knowing. Any noticeable person became, as it were, member of a -club which had a tacit existence, though there was no single place of -meeting or recognized organization. Swift soon became known at the -coffee-houses, which have been superseded by the clubs of modern times. At -one time, according to a story vague as to dates, he got the name of the -"mad parson" from Addison and others, by his habit of taking -half-an-hour's smart walk to and fro in the coffee-house, and then -departing in silence. At last he abruptly accosted a stranger from the -country: "Pray, sir, do you remember any good weather in the world?" "Yes, -sir," was the reply, "I thank God I remember a great deal of good weather -in my time." "That," said Swift, "is more than I can say. I never remember -any weather that was not too hot, or too cold, or too wet, or too dry: -but, however God Almighty contrives it, at the end of the year 'tis all -very well;" with which sentiment he vanished. Whatever his introduction -Swift would soon make himself felt. The _Tale of a Tub_ appeared--with a -very complimentary dedication to Somers--in 1704, and revealed powers -beyond the rivalry of any living author. - -In the year 1705 Swift became intimate with Addison, who wrote in a copy -of his _Travels in Italy_, To _Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable -companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age, this -work is presented by his most humble servant the author_. Though the word -"genius" had scarcely its present strength of meaning, the phrase -certainly implies that Addison knew Swift's authorship of the _Tale_, and -with all his decorum was not repelled by its audacious satire. The pair -formed a close friendship, which is honourable to both. For it proves that -if Swift was imperious and Addison a little too fond of the adulation of -"wits and Templars," each could enjoy the society of an intellectual -equal. They met, we may fancy, like absolute kings, accustomed to the -incense of courtiers, and not inaccessible to its charms; and yet glad at -times to throw aside state and associate with each other without jealousy. -Addison, we know, was most charming when talking to a single companion, -and Delany repeats Swift's statement that, often as they spent their -evenings together, they never wished for a third. Steele, for a time, was -joined in what Swift calls a triumvirate; and though political strife led -to a complete breach with Steele and a temporary eclipse of familiarity -with Addison, it never diminished Swift's affection for his great rival. -"That man," he said once, "has virtue enough to give reputation to an -age," and the phrase expresses his settled opinion. Swift, however, had a -low opinion of the society of the average "wit." "The worst conversation I -ever heard in my life," he says, "was that at Wills' coffee-house, where -the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble;" and he speaks -with a contempt recalling Pope's satire upon the "little senate," of the -absurd self-importance and the foolish adulation of the students and -Templars who listened to these oracles. Others have suspected that many -famous coteries of which literary people are accustomed to speak with -unction, probably fell as far short in reality of their traditional -pleasantness. Swift's friendship with Addison was partly due, we may -fancy, to the difference in temper and talent which fitted each to be -complement of the other. A curious proof of the mutual goodwill is given -by the history of Swift's _Baucis and Philemon_. It is a humorous and -agreeable enough travesty of Ovid; a bit of good-humoured pleasantry, -which we may take as it was intended. The performance was in the spirit of -the time, and if Swift had not the lightness of touch of his -contemporaries, Prior, Gay, Parnell, and Pope, he perhaps makes up for it -by greater force and directness. But the piece is mainly remarkable -because, as he tells us, Addison made him "blot out four score lines, add -four score, and alter four score," though the whole consisted of only 178 -verses.[16] Swift showed a complete absence of the ordinary touchiness of -authors. His indifference to literary fame as to its pecuniary rewards, -was conspicuous. He was too proud, as he truly said, to be vain. His sense -of dignity restrained him from petty sensibility. When a clergyman -regretted some emendations which had been hastily suggested by himself and -accepted by Swift, Swift replied that it mattered little, and that he -would not give grounds by adhering to his own opinion, for an imputation -of vanity. If Swift was egotistical, there was nothing petty even in his -egotism. - -A piece of facetiousness, started by Swift in the last of his visits to -London, has become famous. A cobbler called Partridge had set up as an -astrologer, and published predictions in the style of _Zadkiel's Almanac_. -Swift amused himself in the beginning of 1708 by publishing a rival -prediction under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. Bickerstaff professed that -he would give verifiable and definite predictions, instead of the vague -oracular utterances of his rival. The first of these predictions announced -the approaching death, at 11 p.m., on March 29th, of Partridge himself. -Directly after that day appeared a letter "to a person of honour," -announcing the fulfilment of the prediction by the death of Partridge -within four hours of the date assigned. Partridge took up the matter -seriously, and indignantly declared himself, in a new Almanac, to be -alive. Bickerstaff retorted in a humorous Vindication, arguing that -Partridge was really dead; that his continuing to write almanacs was no -proof to the contrary, and so forth. All the wits, great and small, took -part in the joke: the Portuguese inquisition, so it is said, were -sufficiently taken in to condemn Bickerstaff to the flames; and Steele, -who started the _Tatler_, whilst the joke was afoot, adopted the name of -Bickerstaff for the imaginary author. Dutiful biographers agree to admire -this as a wonderful piece of fun. The joke does not strike me, I will -confess, as of very exquisite flavour; but it is a curious illustration of -a peculiarity to which Swift owed some of his power, and which seems to -have suggested many of the mythical anecdotes about him. His humour very -easily took the form of practical joking. In those days, the mutual -understanding of the little clique of wits made it easy to get a hoax -taken up by the whole body. They joined to persecute poor Partridge, as -the undergraduates at a modern college might join to tease some obnoxious -tradesman. Swift's peculiar irony fitted him to take the load; for it -implied a singular pleasure in realizing the minute consequences of some -given hypothesis, and working out in detail some grotesque or striking -theory. The love of practical jokes, which seems to have accompanied him -through life, is one of the less edifying manifestations of the tendency. -It seems as if he could not quite enjoy a jest till it was translated into -actual tangible fact. The fancy does not suffice him till it is realized. -If the story about "dearly beloved Roger" be true, it is a case in point. -Sydney Smith would have been content with suggesting that such a thing -might be done. Swift was not satisfied till he had done it. And even if it -be not true, it has been accepted because it is like the truth. We could -almost fancy that if Swift had thought of Charles Lamb's famous quibble -about walking on an empty stomach ("on whose empty stomach?"), he would -have liked to carry it out by an actual promenade on real human flesh and -blood. - -Swift became intimate with Irish viceroys, and with the most famous wits -and statesmen of London. But he received none of the good things bestowed -so freely upon contemporary men of letters. In 1705, Addison, his intimate -friend, and his junior by five years, had sprung from a garret to a -comfortable office. Other men passed Swift in the race. He notes -significantly in 1708, that "a young fellow," a friend of his, had just -received a sinecure of 400_l._ a year, as an addition to another of -300_l._ Towards the end of 1704 he had already complained that he got -"nothing but the good words and wishes of a decayed ministry, whose lives -and mine will probably wear out before they can serve either my little -hopes, or their own ambition." Swift still remained in his own district, -"a hedge-parson," flattered, caressed and neglected. And yet he held,[17] -that it was easier to provide for ten men in the church, than for one in a -civil employment. To understand his claims, and the modes by which he used -to enforce them, we must advert briefly to the state of English politics. -A clear apprehension of Swift's relation to the ministers of the day is -essential to any satisfactory estimate of his career. - -The reign of Queen Anne was a period of violent party spirit. At the end -of 1703, Swift humorously declares that even the cats and dogs were -infected with the Whig and Tory animosity. The "very ladies" were divided -into high church and low; and, "out of zeal for religion, had hardly time -to say their prayers." The gentle satire of Addison and Steele, in the -_Spectator_, confirms Swift's contemporary lamentations, as to the baneful -effects of party zeal upon private friendship. And yet, it has been often -said, that the party issues were hopelessly confounded. Lord Stanhope -argues--and he is only repeating what Swift frequently said--that Whigs -and Tories had exchanged principles.[18] In later years, Swift constantly -asserted that he attacked the Whigs in defence of the true Whig faith. He -belonged indeed to a party, almost limited to himself: for he avowed -himself to be the anomalous hybrid, a High-church Whig. We must therefore -inquire a little further into the true meaning of the accepted -shibboleths. - -Swift had come from Ireland, saturated with the prejudices of his caste. -The highest Tory in Ireland, as he told William, would make a tolerable -Whig in England. For the English colonists in Ireland, the expulsion of -James was a condition not of party success but of existence. Swift, whose -personal and family interests were identified with those of the English in -Ireland, could repudiate James with his whole heart, and heartily accepted -the revolution; he was therefore a Whig, so far as attachment to -"revolution principles" was the distinctive badge of Whiggism. Swift -despised James, and he hated Popery from first to last. Contempt and -hatred with him were never equivocal, and in this case they sprang as much -from his energetic sense as from his early prejudices. Jacobitism was -becoming a sham, and therefore offensive to men of insight into facts. Its -ghost walked the earth for some time longer, and at times aped reality; -but it meant mere sentimentalism or vague discontent. Swift, when asked to -explain its persistence, said that when he was in pain and lying on his -right side, he naturally turned to his left, though he might have no -prospect of benefit from the change.[19] The country squire, who drank -healths to the king over the water, was tired of the Georges, and shared -the fears of the typical Western, that his lands were in danger of being -sent to Hanover. The Stuarts had been in exile long enough to win the love -of some of their subjects. Sufficient time had elapsed to erase from short -memories the true cause of their fall. Squires and parsons did not cherish -less warmly the privileges in defence of which they had sent the last -Stuart king about his business. Rather the privileges had become so much a -matter of course that the very fear of any assault seemed visionary. The -Jacobitism of later days did not mean any discontent with revolution -principles, but dislike to the revolution dynasty. The Whig indeed argued -with true party logic, that every Tory must be a Jacobite, and every -Jacobite a lover of arbitrary rule. In truth a man might wish to restore -the Stuarts without wishing to restore the principles for which the -Stuarts had been expelled: he might be a Jacobite without being a lover of -arbitrary rule; and still more easily might he be a Tory without being a -Jacobite. Swift constantly asserted--and in a sense with perfect -truth--that the revolution had been carried out in defence of the Church -of England, and chiefly by attached members of the Church. To be a sound -churchman was, so far, to be pledged against the family which had assailed -the Church. - -Swift's Whiggism would naturally be strengthened by his personal relation -with Temple, and with various Whigs whom he came to know through Temple. -But Swift, I have said, was a churchman as well as a Whig; as staunch a -churchman as Laud, and as ready, I imagine, to have gone to the block or -to prison in defence of his church as any one from the days of Laud to -those of Mr. Green. For a time his zeal was not called into play; the war -absorbed all interests. Marlborough and Godolphin, the great heads of the -family clique which dominated poor Queen Anne, had begun as Tories and -churchmen, supported by a Tory majority. The war had been dictated by a -national sentiment: but from the beginning it was really a Whig war: for -it was a war against Louis, Popery, and the Pretender. And thus, the great -men who were identified with the war, began slowly to edge over to the -party whose principles were the war principles; who hated the Pope, the -Pretender, and the King of France, as their ancestors had hated Phillip of -Spain, or as their descendants hated Napoleon. The war meant alliance with -the Dutch, who had been the martyrs, and were the enthusiastic defenders -of toleration and free thought; and it forced English ministers, almost in -spite of themselves, into the most successful piece of statesmanship of -the century, the Union with Scotland. Now Swift hated the Dutch and hated -the Scotch, with a vehemence that becomes almost ludicrous. The margin of -his Burnet was scribbled over with execrations against the Scots. "Most -damnable Scots," "Scots hell-hounds," "Scotch dogs," "cursed Scots still," -"hellish Scottish dogs," are a few of his spontaneous flowers of speech. -His prejudices are the prejudices of his class intensified as all passions -were intensified in him. Swift regarded Scotchmen as the most virulent and -dangerous of all dissenters; they were represented to him by the Irish -Presbyterians, the natural rivals of his church. He reviled the Union, -because it implied the recognition by the State of a sect which regarded -the Church of England as little better than a manifestation of Antichrist. -And, in this sense, Swift's sympathies were with the Tories. For in truth -the real contrast between Whigs and Tories, in respect of which there is a -perfect continuity of principle, depended upon the fact that the Whigs -reflected the sentiments of the middle classes, the "monied men" and the -dissenters; whilst the Tories reflected the sentiments of the land and the -church. Each party might occasionally adopt the commonplaces or accept the -measures generally associated with its antagonists; but at bottom, the -distinction was between squire and parson on one side, tradesmen and -banker on the other. - -The domestic politics of the reign of Anne turned upon this difference. -The history is a history of the gradual shifting of government to the Whig -side, and the growing alienation of the clergy and squires, accelerated by -a system which caused the fiscal burden of the war to fall chiefly upon -the land. Bearing this in mind, Swift's conduct is perfectly intelligible. -His first plunge into politics was in 1701. Poor King William was in the -thick of the perplexities caused by the mysterious perverseness of English -politicians. The king's ministers, supported by the House of Lords, had -lost the command of the House of Commons. It had not yet come to be -understood that the Cabinet was to be a mere committee of the House of -Commons. The personal wishes of the sovereign, and the alliances and -jealousies of great courtiers, were still highly important factors in the -political situation; as indeed both the composition and the subsequent -behaviour of the Commons could be controlled to a considerable extent by -legitimate and other influences of the Crown. The Commons, unable to make -their will obeyed, proceeded to impeach Somers and other ministers. A -bitter struggle took place between the two Houses, which was suspended by -the summer recess. At this crisis Swift published his _Discourse on the -Dissensions in Athens and Rome_. The abstract political argument is as -good or as bad as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand political -treatises--that is to say, a repetition of familiar commonplaces; and the -mode of applying precedents from ancient politics would now strike us as -pedantic. The pamphlet, however, is dignified and well-written, and the -application to the immediate difficulty is pointed. His argument is, -briefly, that the House of Commons is showing a factious, tyrannical -temper, identical in its nature with that of a single tyrant and as -dangerous in its consequences, that it has therefore ceased to reflect the -opinions of its constituents, and has endangered the sacred balance -between the three primary elements of our constitution, upon which its -safe working depends. - -The pamphlet was from beginning to end a remonstrance against the -impeachments, and therefore a defence of the Whig lords; for whom -sufficiently satisfactory parallels are vaguely indicated in Pericles, -Aristides, and so forth. It was "greedily bought;" it was attributed to -Somers and to the great Whig bishop, Burnet, who had to disown it for fear -of an impeachment. An Irish bishop, it is said, called Swift a "very -positive young man" for doubting Burnet's authorship; whereupon Swift had -to claim it for himself. Youthful vanity, according to his own account, -induced him to make the admission, which would certainly not have been -withheld by adult discretion. For the result was that Somers, Halifax, and -Sunderland, three of the great Whig junto, took him up, often admitted him -to their intimacy, and were liberal in promising him "the greatest -preferments" should they come into power. Before long Swift had another -opportunity which was also a temptation. The Tory House of Commons had -passed the bill against occasional conformity. Ardent partisans generally -approved this bill, as it was clearly annoying to dissenters. It was -directed against the practice of qualifying for office by taking the -sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England without -permanently conforming. It might be fairly argued--as Defoe argued, though -with questionable sincerity--that such a temporary compliance would be -really injurious to dissent. The Church would profit by such an -exhibition of the flexibility of its opponents' principles. Passions were -too much heated for such arguments; and in the winter of 1703-4, people, -says Swift, talked of nothing else. He was "mightily urged by some great -people" to publish his opinion. An argument from a powerful writer, and a -clergyman, against the bill would be very useful to his Whig friends. But -Swift's high church prejudices made him hesitate. The Whig leaders assured -him that nothing should induce them to vote against the bill if they -expected its rejection to hurt the church or "do kindness to the -dissenters." But it is precarious to argue from the professed intentions -of statesmen to their real motives, and yet more precarious to argue to -the consequences of their actions. Swift knew not what to think. He -resolved to think no more. At last he made up his mind to write against -the bill, but he made it up too late. The bill failed to pass; and Swift -felt a relief in dismissing this delicate subject. He might still call -himself a Whig, and exult in the growth of Whiggism. Meanwhile he -persuaded himself that the dissenters and their troubles were beneath his -notice. - -They were soon to come again to the front. Swift came to London at the end -of 1707, charged with a mission on behalf of his church. Queen Anne's -Bounty was founded in 1704. The crown restored to the church the -first-fruits and tenths which Henry VIII. had diverted from the papal into -his own treasury, and appropriated them to the augmentation of small -livings. It was proposed to get the same boon for the Church of Ireland. -The whole sum amounted to about 1000_l._ a year, with a possibility of an -additional 2000_l._ Swift, who had spoken of this to King, the Archbishop -of Dublin, was now to act as solicitor on behalf of the Irish clergy, and -hoped to make use of his influence with Somers and Sunderland. The -negotiation was to give him more trouble than he foresaw, and initiate -him, before he had done with it, into certain secrets of cabinets and -councils which he as yet very imperfectly appreciated. His letters to -King, continued over a long period, throw much light on his motives. Swift -was in England from November, 1707, till March, 1709. The year 1708 was -for him, as he says, a year of suspense, a year of vast importance to his -career, and marked by some characteristic utterances. He hoped to use his -influence with Somers. Somers, though still out of office, was the great -oracle of the Whigs, whilst Sunderland was already Secretary of State. In -January, 1708, the bishopric of Waterford was vacant, and Somers tried to -obtain the see for Swift. The attempt failed, but the political -catastrophe of the next month gave hopes that the influence of Somers -would soon be paramount. Harley, the prince of wire-pulling and back-stair -intrigue, had exploded the famous Masham plot. Though this project failed, -it was "reckoned," says Swift, "the greatest piece of court skill that has -been acted many years." Queen Anne was to take advantage of the growing -alienation of the church party to break her bondage to the Marlboroughs, -and change her ministers. But the attempt was premature, and discomfited -its devisers. Harley was turned out of office; Marlborough and Godolphin -came into alliance with the Whig junto; and the queen's bondage seemed -more complete than ever. A cabinet crisis in those days, however, took a -long time. It was not till October, 1708, that the Whigs, backed by a new -Parliament and strengthened by the victory of Oudenarde, were in full -enjoyment of power. Somers at last became President of the Council and -Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Wharton's appointment was specially -significant for Swift. He was, as even Whigs admitted, a man of infamous -character, redeemed only by energy and unflinching fidelity to his party. -He was licentious and a freethinker; his infidelity showed itself in the -grossest outrages against common decency. If he had any religious -principle it was a preference of Presbyterians, as sharing his antipathy -to the church. No man could be more radically antipathetic to Swift. -Meanwhile, the success of the Whigs meant in the first instance the -success of the men from whom Swift had promises of preferment. He tried to -use his influence as he had proposed. In June he had an interview about -the first-fruits with Godolphin, to whom he had been recommended by Somers -and Sunderland. Godolphin replied in vague officialisms, suggesting with -studied vagueness that the Irish clergy must show themselves more grateful -than the English. His meaning, as Swift thought, was that the Irish clergy -should consent to a repeal of the Test Act, regarded by them and by him as -the essential bulwark of the Church. Nothing definite, however, was said; -and meanwhile Swift, though he gave no signs of compliance, continued to -hope for his own preferment. When the final triumph of the Whigs came he -was still hoping, though with obvious qualms as to his position. He begged -King (in Nov. 1708) to believe in his fidelity to the church. Offers might -be made to him, but "no prospect of making my fortune shall ever prevail -on me to go against what becomes a man of conscience and truth, and an -entire friend to the established church." He hoped that he might be -appointed secretary to a projected embassy to Vienna, a position which -would put him beyond the region of domestic politics. - -Meanwhile he had published certain tracts which may be taken as the -manifesto of his faith at the time when his principles were being most -severely tested. Would he or would he not sacrifice his churchmanship to -the interests of the party with which he was still allied? There can be no -doubt that by an open declaration of Whig principles in church -matters--such a declaration, say, as would have satisfied Burnet--he would -have qualified himself for preferment, and have been in a position to -command the fulfilment of the promises made by Somers and Sunderland. - -The writings in question were the _Argument to prove the inconvenience of -abolishing Christianity_; a _Project for the Advancement of Religion_; and -the _Sentiments of a Church of England Man_. The first, as I have said, -was meant to show that the satirical powers which had given offence in the -_Tale of a Tub_, could be applied without equivocation in defence of -Christianity. The _Project_ is a very forcible exposition of a text which -is common enough in all ages--namely, that the particular age of the -writer is one of unprecedented corruption. It shares, however, with -Swift's other writings, the merit of downright sincerity, which convinces -us that the author is not repeating platitudes, but giving his own -experience and speaking from conviction. His proposals for a reform, -though he must have felt them to be chimerical, are conceived in the -spirit common in the days before people had begun to talk about the State -and the individual. He assumes throughout that a vigorous action of the -court and the government will reform the nation. He does not contemplate -the now commonplace objection that such a revival of the Puritanical -system might simply stimulate hypocrisy. He expressly declares that -religion may be brought into fashion "by the power of the administration," -and assumes that to bring religion into fashion is the same thing as to -make men religious. This view--suitable enough to Swift's imperious -temper--was also the general assumption of the time. A suggestion thrown -out in his pamphlet is generally said to have led to the scheme soon -afterwards carried out under Harley's administration for building fifty -new churches in London. A more personal touch is Swift's complaint that -the clergy sacrifice their influence by "sequestering themselves" too -much, and forming a separate caste. This reads a little like an implied -defence of himself for frequenting London coffee-houses, when cavillers -might have argued that he should be at Laracor. But like all Swift's -utterances, it covered a settled principle. I have already noticed this -peculiarity, which he shows elsewhere when describing himself as - - A clergyman of special note - For shunning others of his coat; - Which made his brethren of the gown - Take care betimes to run him down. - -The _Sentiments of a Church of England Man_ is more significant. It is a -summary of his unvarying creed. In politics he is a good Whig. He -interprets the theory of passive obedience as meaning obedience to the -"legislative power;" not therefore to the king specially; and he -deliberately accepts the revolution on the plain ground of the _salus -populi_. His leading maxim is that the "administration cannot be placed in -too few hands nor the legislature in too many." But this political -liberality is associated with unhesitating churchmanship. Sects are -mischievous: to say that they are mischievous is to say that they ought to -be checked in their beginning; where they exist they should be tolerated, -but not to the injury of the church. And hence he reaches his leading -principle that a "government cannot give them (sects) too much ease, nor -trust them with too little power." Such doctrines clearly and tersely laid -down were little to the taste of the Whigs, who were more anxious than -ever to conciliate the dissenters. But it was not till the end of the year -that Swift applied his abstract theory to a special case. There had been -various symptoms of a disposition to relax the Test Acts in Ireland. The -appointment of Wharton to be Lord Lieutenant was enough to alarm Swift, -even though his friend Addison was to be Wharton's secretary. In December, -1708, he published a pamphlet, ostensibly a letter from a member of the -Irish to a member of the English House of Commons, in which the necessity -of keeping up the Test was vigorously enforced. It is the first of Swift's -political writings in which we see his true power. In those just noticed -he is forced to take an impartial tone. He is trying to reconcile himself -to his alliance with the Whigs, or to reconcile the Whigs to their -protection of himself. He speaks as a moderator, and poses as the -dignified moralist above all party-feeling. But in this letter he throws -the reins upon his humour, and strikes his opponents full in the face. -From his own point of view the pamphlet is admirable. He quotes Cowley's -verse, - - Forbid it, heaven, my life should be - Weighed with thy least conveniency. - -The Irish, by which he means the English, and the English exclusively of -the Scotch, in Ireland, represent this enthusiastic lover, and are called -upon to sacrifice themselves to the political conveniency of the Whig -party. Swift expresses his usual wrath against the Scots, who are eating -up the land, boasts of the loyalty of the Irish Church, and taunts the -Presbyterians with their tyranny in former days. Am I to be forced, he -asks, "to keep my chaplain disguised like my butler, and steal to prayers -in a back room, as my grandfather used in those times when the Church of -England was malignant?" Is not this a ripping up of old quarrels? Ought -not all Protestants to unite against Papists? No, the enemy is the same as -ever. "It is agreed among naturalists that a lion is a larger, a stronger, -and more dangerous enemy than a cat; yet if a man were to have his choice, -either a lion at his foot fast bound with three or four chains, his teeth -drawn out, and his claws pared to the quick, or an angry cat in full -liberty at his throat, he would take no long time to determine." The bound -lion means the Catholic natives, whom Swift declares to be as -"inconsiderable as the women and children." - -Meanwhile the long first-fruits negotiation was languidly proceeding. At -last it seemed to be achieved. Lord Pembroke, the outgoing Lord -Lieutenant, sent Swift word that the grant had been made. Swift reported -his success to Archbishop King with a very pardonable touch of complacency -at his "very little" merit in the matter. But a bitter disappointment -followed. The promise made had never been fulfilled. In March, 1709, Swift -had again to write to the Archbishop, recounting his failure, his attempt -to remonstrate with Wharton, the new Lord Lieutenant, and the too certain -collapse of the whole business. The failure was complete; the promised -boon was not granted, and Swift's chance of a bishopric had pretty well -vanished. Halifax, the great Whig Mæcenas, and the Bufo of Pope, wrote to -him in his retirement at Dublin, declaring that he had "entered into a -confederacy with Mr. Addison" to urge Swift's claims upon Government, and -speaking of the declining health of South, then a Prebendary of -Westminster. Swift endorsed this "I lock up this letter as a true original -of courtiers and court promises," and wrote in a volume he had begged from -the same person that it was the only favour "he ever received from him or -his party." In the last months of his stay he had suffered cruelly from -his old giddiness, and he went to Ireland, after a visit to his mother in -Leicester, in sufficiently gloomy mood; retired to Laracor, and avoided -any intercourse with the authorities at the Castle, excepting always -Addison. - -To this it is necessary to add one remark. Swift's version of the story is -substantially that which I have given, and it is everywhere confirmed by -contemporary letters. It shows that he separated from the Whig party when -at the height of their power, and separated because he thought them -opposed to the church principles which he advocated from first to last. It -is most unjust, therefore to speak of Swift as a deserter from the Whigs, -because he afterwards joined the church party, which shared all his -strongest prejudices. I am so far from seeing any ground for such a -charge, that I believe that few men have ever adhered more strictly to the -principles with which they have started. But such charges have generally -an element of truth; and it is easy here to point out what was the really -weak point in Swift's position. - -Swift's writings, with one or two trifling exceptions, were originally -anonymous. As they were very apt to produce warrants for the apprehension -of publisher and author, the precaution was natural enough in later years. -The mask was often merely ostensible; a sufficient protection against -legal prosecution, but in reality covering an open secret. When in the -_Sentiments of a Church of England Man_ Swift professes to conceal his -name carefully, it may be doubted how far this is to be taken seriously. -But he went much further in the letter on the Test Act. He inserted a -passage intended really to blind his adversaries by a suggestion that Dr. -Swift was likely to write in favour of abolishing the test; and he even -complains to King of the unfairness of this treatment. His assault, -therefore, upon the supposed Whig policy was clandestine. This may -possibly be justified; he might even urge that he was still a Whig, and -was warning ministers against measures which they had not yet adopted, and -from which, as he thinks, they may still be deterred by an alteration of -the real Irish feeling.[20] He complained afterwards that he was -ruined--that is, as to his chances of preferment from the party--by the -suspicion of his authorship of this tract. That is to say, he was "ruined" -by the discovery of his true sentiments. This is to admit that he was -still ready to accept preferment from the men whose supposed policy he was -bitterly attacking, and that he resented their alienation as a grievance. -The resentment indeed was most bitter and pertinacious. He turned savagely -upon his old friends because they would not make him a bishop. The answer -from their point of view was conclusive. He had made a bitter and covert -attack, and he could not at once claim a merit from churchmen for -defending the church against the Whigs, and revile the Whigs for not -rewarding him. But inconsistency of this kind is characteristic of Swift. -He thought the Whigs scoundrels for not patronizing him, and not the less -scoundrels because their conduct was consistent with their own scoundrelly -principles. People who differ from me must be wicked, argued this -consistent egotist, and their refusal to reward me is only an additional -wickedness. The case appeared to him as though he had been a Nathan -sternly warning a David of his sins, and for that reason deprived of -honour. David could not have urged his sinful desires as an excuse for -ill-treatment of Nathan. And Swift was inclined to class indifference to -the welfare of the church as a sin even in an avowed Whig. Yet he had to -ordinary minds forfeited any right to make non-fulfilment a grievance, -when he ought to have regarded performance as a disgrace. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. - - -In the autumn of 1710 Swift was approaching the end of his forty-third -year. A man may well feel at forty-two that it is high time that a post -should have been assigned to him. Should an opportunity be then, and not -till then, put in his way, he feels that he is throwing for heavy stakes; -and that failure, if failure should follow, would be irretrievable. Swift -had been longing vainly for an opening. In the remarkable letter (of -April, 1722) from which I have quoted the anecdote of the lost fish, he -says that, "all my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only -for want of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a lord by -those who have an opinion of my parts; whether right or wrong is no great -matter; and so the reputation of wit or great learning does the office of -a blue riband or of a coach and six horses." The phrase betrays Swift's -scornful self-mockery; that inverted hypocrisy which led him to call his -motives by their worst names, and to disavow what he might have been sorry -to see denied by others. But, like all that Swift says of himself, it also -expresses a genuine conviction. Swift was ambitious, and his ambition -meant an absolute need of imposing his will upon others. He was a man born -to rule; not to affect thought, but to control conduct. He was therefore -unable to find full occupation, though he might seek occasional -distraction, in literary pursuits. Archbishop King, who had a strange -knack of irritating his correspondent--not, it seems, without -intention--annoyed Swift intensely in 1711 by advising him (most -superfluously) to get preferment, and with that view to write a serious -treatise upon some theological question. Swift, who was in the thick of -his great political struggle, answered that it was absurd to ask a man -floating at sea what he meant to do when he got ashore. "Let him get there -first and rest and dry himself, and then look about him." To find firm -footing amidst the welter of political intrigues, was Swift's first -object. Once landed in a deanery he might begin to think about writing; -but he never attempted, like many men in his position, to win preferment -through literary achievements. To a man of such a temperament, his career -must so far have been cruelly vexatious. We are generally forced to judge -of a man's life by a few leading incidents; and we may be disposed to -infer too hastily that the passions roused on those critical occasions -coloured the whole tenor of every-day existence. Doubtless Swift was not -always fretting over fruitless prospects. He was often eating his dinner -in peace and quiet, and even amusing himself with watching the Moor Park -rooks or the Laracor trout. Yet it is true that so far as a man's -happiness depends upon the consciousness of a satisfactory employment of -his faculties, whether with a view to glory or solid comfort, Swift had -abundant causes of discontent. The "conjured spirit" was still weaving -ropes of sand. For ten years he had been dependent upon Temple, and his -struggles to get upon his own legs had been fruitless: on Temple's death -he managed when past thirty to wring from fortune a position of bare -independence, not of satisfying activity, he had not gained a fulcrum from -which to move the world, but only a bare starting-point whence he might -continue to work. The promises from great men had come to nothing. He -might perhaps have realized them, could he have consented to be faithless -to his dearest convictions; the consciousness that he had so far -sacrificed his position to his principles gave him no comfort, though it -nourished his pride. His enforced reticence produced an irritation against -the ministers whom it had been intended to conciliate, which deepened into -bitter resentment for their neglect. The year and a half passed in Ireland -during 1709-10 was a period in which his day-dreams must have had a -background of disappointed hopes. "I stayed above half the time," he says, -"in one scurvy acre of ground, and I always left it with regret." He shut -himself up at Laracor, and nourished a growing indignation against the -party represented by Wharton. - -Yet events were moving rapidly in England, and opening a new path for his -ambition. The Whigs were in full possession of power, though at the price -of a growing alienation of all who were weary of a never-ending war, or -hostile to the Whig policy in Church and State. The leaders, though warned -by Somers, fancied that they would strengthen their position by attacking -the defeated enemy. The prosecution of Sacheverell in the winter of -1709-10, if not directed by personal spite, was meant to intimidate the -high-flying Tories. It enabled the Whig leaders to indulge in a vast -quantity of admirable constitutional rhetoric; but it supplied the High -Church party with a martyr and a cry, and gave the needed impetus to the -growing discontent. The queen took heart to revolt against the -Marlboroughs; the Whig Ministry were turned out of office; Harley became -Chancellor of the Exchequer in August; and the parliament was dissolved in -September, 1710, to be replaced in November by one in which the Tories had -an overwhelming majority. - -We are left to guess at the feelings with which Swift contemplated these -changes. Their effect upon his personal prospects was still problematical. -In spite of his wrathful retirement, there was no open breach between him -and the Whigs. He had no personal relations with the new possessors of -power. Harley and St. John, the two chiefs, were unknown to him. And, -according to his own statement, he started for England once more with -great reluctance in order again to take up the weary Firstfruits -negociation. Wharton, whose hostility had intercepted the proposed bounty, -went with his party, and was succeeded by the High Church Duke of Ormond. -The political aspects were propitious for a renewed application, and -Swift's previous employment pointed him out as the most desirable agent. - -And now Swift suddenly comes into full light. For two or three years we -can trace his movements day by day; follow the development of his hopes -and fears; and see him more clearly than he could be seen by almost any of -his contemporaries. The famous _Journal to Stella_, a series of letters -written to Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, from September, 1710, till -April, 1713, is the main and central source of information. Before telling -the story, a word or two may be said of the nature of this document, one -of the most interesting that ever threw light upon the history of a man of -genius. The _Journal_ is one of the very few that were clearly written -without the faintest thought of publication. There is no indication of -any such intention in the _Journal to Stella_. It never occurred to Swift -that it could ever be seen by any but the persons primarily interested. -The journal rather shuns politics; they will not interest his -correspondent, and he is afraid of the post-office clerks--then and long -afterwards often employed as spies. Interviews with ministers have -scarcely more prominence than the petty incidents of his daily life. We -are told that he discussed business, but the discussion is not reported. -Much more is omitted which might have been of the highest interest. We -hear of meetings with Addison; not a phrase of Addison's is vouchsafed to -us; we go to the door of Harley or St. John; we get no distinct vision of -the men who were the centres of all observation. Nor, again, are there any -of those introspective passages which give to some journals the interest -of a confession. What, then, is the interest of the _Journal to Stella_? -One element of strange and singular fascination, to be considered -hereafter, is the prattle with his correspondent. For the rest, our -interest depends in great measure upon the reflections with which we must -ourselves clothe the bare skeleton of facts. In reading the _Journal to -Stella_ we may fancy ourselves waiting in a parliamentary lobby during an -excited debate. One of the chief actors hurries out at intervals; pours -out a kind of hasty bulletin; tells of some thrilling incident, or -indicates some threatening symptom; more frequently he seeks to relieve -his anxieties by indulging in a little personal gossip, and only -interjects such comments upon politics as can be compressed into a hasty -ejaculation, often, as may be supposed, of the imprecatory kind. Yet he -unconsciously betrays his hopes and fears; he is fresh from the thick of -the fight, and we perceive that his nerves are still quivering, and that -his phrases are glowing with the ardour of the struggle. Hopes and fears -are long since faded, and the struggle itself is now but a war of -phantoms. Yet with the help of the _Journal_ and contemporary documents, -we can revive for the moment the decaying images, and cheat ourselves into -the momentary persuasion that the fate of the world depends upon Harley's -success, as we now hold it to depend upon Mr. Gladstone's. - -Swift reached London on September 7th, 1710; the political revolution was -in full action, though Parliament was not yet dissolved. The Whigs were -"ravished to see him;" they clutched at him, he says, like drowning men at -a twig, and the great men made him their "clumsy apologies." Godolphin was -"short, dry and morose;" Somers tried to make explanations, which Swift -received with studied coldness. The ever-courteous Halifax gave him -dinners; and asked him to drink to the resurrection of the Whigs, which -Swift refused unless he would add "to their reformation." Halifax -persevered in his attentions, and was always entreating him to go down to -Hampton Court; "which will cost me a guinea to his servants, and twelve -shillings coach hire, and I will see him hanged first." Swift, however, -retained his old friendship with the wits of the party; dined with Addison -at his retreat in Chelsea, and sent a trifle or two to the _Tatler_. The -elections began in October; Swift had to drive through a rabble of -Westminster electors, judiciously agreeing with their sentiments to avoid -dead cats and broken glasses; and though Addison was elected ("I believe," -says Swift, "if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be -refused"), the Tories were triumphant in every direction. And meanwhile, -the Tory leaders were delightfully civil. - -On the 4th of October Swift was introduced to Harley, getting himself -described (with undeniable truth) "as a discontented person, who was ill -used for not being Whig enough." The poor Whigs lamentably confess, he -says, their ill usage of him, "but I mind them not." Their confession came -too late. Harley had received him with open arms, and won not only Swift's -adhesion, but his warm personal attachment. The fact is indisputable, -though rather curious. Harley appears to us as a shifty and feeble -politician, an inarticulate orator, wanting in principles and resolution, -who made it his avowed and almost only rule of conduct that a politician -should live from hand to mouth.[21] Yet his prolonged influence in -Parliament seems to indicate some personal attraction, which was -perceptible to his contemporaries, though rather puzzling to us. All -Swift's panegyrics leave the secret in obscurity. Harley seems indeed to -have been eminently respectable and decorously religious, amiable in -personal intercourse, and able to say nothing in such a way as to suggest -profundity instead of emptiness. His reputation as a party manager was -immense; and is partly justified by his quick recognition of Swift's -extraordinary qualifications. He had inferior scribblers in his pay, -including, as we remember with regret, the shifty Defoe. But he wanted a -man of genuine ability and character. Some months later the ministers told -Swift that they had been afraid of none but him; and resolved to have him. - -They got him. Harley had received him "with the greatest kindness and -respect imaginable." Three days later (Oct. 7th) the firstfruits business -is discussed, and Harley received the proposals as warmly as became a -friend of the Church, besides overwhelming Swift with civilities. Swift is -to be introduced to St. John; to dine with Harley next Tuesday; and after -an interview of four hours, the minister sets him down at St James's -Coffee-house in a hackney coach. "All this is odd and comical!" exclaims -Swift; "he knew my Christian name very well," and, as we hear next day, -begged Swift to come to him often, but not to his levée: "that was not a -place for friends to meet." On the 10th of October, within a week from the -first introduction, Harley promises to get the firstfruits business, over -which the Whigs had haggled for years, settled by the following Sunday. -Swift's exultation breaks out. On the 14th he declares that he stands ten -times better with the new people than ever he did with the old, and is -forty times more caressed. The triumph is sharpened by revenge. Nothing, -he says of the sort was ever compassed so soon; "and purely done by my -personal credit with Mr. Harley, who is so excessively obliging, that I -know not what to make of it, unless to show the rascals of the other side -that they used a man unworthily who deserved better." A passage on Nov. -8th sums up his sentiments. "Why," he says in answer to something from -Stella, "should the Whigs think I came from Ireland to leave them? Sure my -journey was no secret! I protest sincerely, I did all I could to hinder -it, as the dean can tell you, though now I do not repent it. But who the -devil cares what they think? Am I under obligations in the least to any of -them all? Rot them for ungrateful dogs; I will make them repent their -usage before I leave this place." The thirst for vengeance may not be -edifying; the political zeal was clearly not of the purest; but in truth, -Swift's party prejudices and his personal resentments are fused into -indissoluble unity. Hatred of Whig principles and resentment of Whig -"ill-usage" of himself, are one and the same thing. Meanwhile, Swift was -able (on Nov. 4) to announce his triumph to the Archbishop. He was greatly -annoyed by an incident, of which he must also have seen the humorous side. -The Irish bishops had bethought themselves after Swift's departure that he -was too much of a Whig to be an effective solicitor. They proposed -therefore to take the matter out of his hands and apply to Ormond, the new -Lord Lieutenant. Swift replied indignantly; the thing was done, however, -and he took care to let it be known that the whole credit belonged to -Harley, and of course, in a subordinate sense, to himself. Official -formalities were protracted for months longer, and formed one excuse for -Swift's continued absence from Ireland; but we need not trouble ourselves -with the matter further. - -Swift's unprecedented leap into favour meant more than a temporary -success. The intimacy with Harley and with St. John rapidly developed. -Within a few months, Swift had forced his way into the very innermost -circle of official authority. A notable quarrel seems to have given the -final impulse to his career. In February, 1711, Harley offered him a -fifty-pound note. This was virtually to treat him as a hireling instead of -an ally. Swift resented the offer as an intolerable affront. He refused to -be reconciled without ample apology, and after long entreaties. His pride -was not appeased for ten days, when the reconciliation was sealed by an -invitation from Harley to a Saturday dinner.[22] On Saturdays, the Lord -Keeper (Harcourt) and the Secretary of State (St. John) dined alone with -Harley: "and at last," says Swift, in reporting the event, "they have -consented to let me among them on that day." He goes next day, and already -chides Lord Rivers for presuming to intrude into the sacred circle. "They -call me nothing but Jonathan," he adds; "and I said I believed they would -leave me Jonathan, as they found me." These dinners were continued, though -they became less select. Harley called Saturday his "whipping-day;" and -Swift was the heartiest wielder of the lash. From the same February, Swift -began to dine regularly with St. John every Sunday; and we may note it as -some indication of the causes of his later preference of Harley, that on -one occasion he has to leave St. John early. The company, he says, were in -constraint, because he would suffer no man to swear or talk indecently in -his presence. - -Swift had thus conquered the ministry at a blow. What services did he -render in exchange? His extraordinary influence seems to have been due in -a measure to sheer force of personal ascendency. No man could come into -contact with Swift without feeling that magnetic influence. But he was -also doing a more tangible service. In thus admitting Swift to their -intimacy, Harley and St. John were in fact paying homage to the rising -power of the pen. Political writers had hitherto been hirelings, and often -little better than spies. No preceding, and, we may add, no succeeding -writer ever achieved such a position by such means. The press has become -more powerful as a whole: but no particular representative of the press -has made such a leap into power. Swift came at the time when the influence -of political writing was already great: and when the personal favour of a -prominent minister could still work miracles. Harley made him a favourite -of the old stamp, to reward his supremacy in the use of the new weapon. - -Swift had begun in October by avenging himself upon Godolphin's coldness, -in a copy of Hudibrastic verses about the virtues of Sid Hamet the -Magician's Rod--that is, the treasurer's staff of office--which had a -wonderful success. He fell savagely upon the hated Wharton not long after, -in what he calls "a damned libellous pamphlet," of which 2000 copies were -sold in two days. Libellous, indeed, is a faint epithet to describe a -production which, if its statements be true, proves that Wharton deserved -to be hunted from society. Charges of lying, treachery, atheism, -Presbyterianism, debauchery, indecency, shameless indifference to his own -reputation and his wife's, the vilest corruption and tyranny in his -government are piled upon his victim as thickly as they will stand. Swift -does not expect to sting Wharton. "I neither love nor hate him," he says. -"If I see him after this is published, he will tell me 'that he is -damnably mauled;' and then, with the easiest transition in the world, ask -about the weather, or the time of day." Wharton might possibly think that -abuse of this kind might almost defeat itself by its own virulence. But -Swift had already begun writings of a more statesmanlike and effective -kind. - -A paper war was already raging when Swift came to London. The _Examiner_ -had been started by St. John, with the help of Atterbury, Prior, and -others; and, opposed for a short time by Addison, in the _Whig Examiner_. -Harley, after granting the first-fruits, had told Swift, that the great -want of the ministry was "some good pen," to keep up the spirits of the -party. The _Examiner_, however, was in need of a firmer and more regular -manager; and Swift took it in hand, his first weekly article appearing -November 2nd, 1710, his last on June 14th, 1711. His _Examiners_ achieved -an immediate and unprecedented success. And yet to say the truth, a modern -reader is apt to find them decidedly heavy. No one, indeed, can fail to -perceive the masculine sense, the terseness and precision of the -utterance. And yet many writings which produced less effect are far more -readable now. The explanation is simple, and applies to most of Swift's -political writings. They are all rather acts than words. They are blows -struck in a party-contest: and their merit is to be gauged by their -effect. Swift cares nothing for eloquence, or logic, or invective--and -little, it must be added, for veracity--so long as he hits his mark. To -judge him by a merely literary standard, is to judge a fencer by the grace -of his attitudes. Some high literary merits are implied in efficiency, as -real grace is necessary to efficient fencing: but in either case, a clumsy -blow which reaches the heart is better than the most dexterous flourish in -the air. Swift's eye is always on the end, as a good marksman looks at -nothing but the target. - -What, then, is Swift's aim in the _Examiner_? Mr. Kinglake has told us how -a great journal throve by discovering what was the remark that was on -every one's lips, and making the remark its own. Swift had the more -dignified task of really striking the keynote for his party. He was to put -the ministerial theory into that form in which it might seem to be the -inevitable utterance of strong common-sense. Harley's supporters were to -see in Swift's phrases just what they would themselves have said--if they -had been able. The shrewd, sturdy, narrow prejudices of the average -Englishman were to be pressed into the service of the ministry, by -showing how admirably they could be clothed in the ministerial formulas. - -The real question, again, as Swift saw, was the question of peace. Whig -and Tory, as he said afterwards,[23] were really obsolete words. The true -point at issue was peace or war. The purpose, therefore, was to take up -his ground so that peace might be represented as the natural policy of the -church or Tory party; and war as the natural fruit of the selfish Whigs. -It was necessary, at the same time, to show that this was not the -utterance of high-flying Toryism or downright Jacobitism, but the plain -dictate of a cool and impartial judgment. He was not to prove but to take -for granted that the war had become intolerably burdensome; and to express -the growing wish for peace in terms likely to conciliate the greatest -number of supporters. He was to lay down the platform which could attract -as many as possible, both of the zealous Tories and of the lukewarm Whigs. - -Measured by their fitness for this end, the _Examiners_ are admirable. -Their very fitness for the end implies the absence of some qualities which -would have been more attractive to posterity. Stirring appeals to -patriotic sentiment may suit a Chatham rousing a nation to action; but -Swift's aim is to check the extravagance in the name of selfish prosaic -prudence. The philosophic reflections of Burke, had Swift been capable of -such reflection, would have flown above the heads of his hearers. Even the -polished and elaborate invective of Junius would have been out of place. -No man, indeed, was a greater master of invective than Swift. He shows it -in the _Examiners_ by onslaughts upon the detested Wharton. He shows, -too, that he is not restrained by any scruples when it comes in his way to -attack his old patrons, and he adopts the current imputations upon their -private character. He could roundly accuse Cowper of bigamy, and -Somers--the Somers whom he had elaborately praised some years before in -the dedication to the _Tale of a Tub_--of the most abominable perversion -of justice. But these are taunts thrown out by the way. The substance of -the articles is not invective, but profession of political faith. One -great name, indeed, is of necessity assailed. Marlborough's fame was a -tower of strength for the Whigs. His duchess and his colleagues had -fallen; but whilst war was still raging, it seemed impossible to dismiss -the greatest living commander. Yet whilst Marlborough was still in power, -his influence might be used to bring back his party. Swift's treatment of -this great adversary is significant. He constantly took credit for having -suppressed many attacks[24] upon Marlborough. He was convinced that it -would be dangerous for the country to dismiss a general whose very name -carried victory.[25] He felt that it was dangerous for the party to make -an unreserved attack upon the popular hero. Lord Rivers, he says, cursed -the _Examiner_ to him for speaking civilly of Marlborough; and St. John, -upon hearing of this, replied that if the counsels of such men as Rivers -were taken, the ministry "would be blown up in twenty-four hours." Yet -Marlborough was the war personified; and the way to victory lay over -Marlborough's body. Nor had Swift any regard for the man himself, who, he -says,[26] is certainly a vile man, and has no sort of merit except the -military--as "covetous as hell, and as ambitious as the prince of -it."[27] The whole case of the ministry implied the condemnation of -Marlborough. Most modern historians would admit that continuance of the -war could at this time be desired only by fanatics or interested persons. -A psychologist might amuse himself by inquiring what were the actual -motives of its advocates; in what degrees personal ambition, a misguided -patriotism, or some more sordid passions were blended. But in the ordinary -dialect of political warfare there is no room for such refinements. The -theory of Swift and Swift's patrons was simple. The war was the creation -of the Whig "ring;" it was carried on for their own purposes by the -stock-jobbers and "monied men," whose rise was a new political phenomenon, -and who had introduced the diabolical contrivance of public debts. The -landed interest and the church had been hoodwinked too long by the union -of corrupt interests supported by Dutchmen, Scotchmen, dissenters, -freethinkers, and other manifestations of the evil principle. Marlborough -was the head and patron of the whole. And what was Marlborough's motive? -The answer was simple. It was that which has been assigned, with even more -emphasis, by Macaulay--Avarice. The twenty-seventh _Examiner_ (Feb. 8th, -1711) probably contains the compliments to which Rivers objected. Swift, -in fact, admits that Marlborough had all the great qualities generally -attributed to him; but all are spoilt by this fatal blemish. How far the -accusation was true matters little. It is put at least with force and -dignity; and it expressed in the pithiest shape Swift's genuine -conviction, that the war now meant corrupt self-interest. Invective, as -Swift knew well enough in his cooler moments, is a dangerous weapon, apt -to recoil on the assailant unless it carries conviction. The attack on -Marlborough does not betray personal animosity; but the deliberate and the -highly plausible judgment of a man determined to call things by their -right names, and not to be blinded by military glory. - -This, indeed, is one of the points upon which Swift's Toryism was unlike -that of some later periods. He always disliked and despised soldiers and -their trade. "It will no doubt be a mighty comfort to our grandchildren," -he says in another pamphlet,[28] "when they see a few rags hung up in -Westminster Hall which cost a hundred millions, whereof they are paying -the arrears, to boast as beggars do that their grandfathers were rich and -great." And in other respects he has some right to claim the adhesion of -thorough Whigs. His personal attacks, indeed, upon the party have a -questionable sound. In his zeal he constantly forgets that the corrupt -ring which he denounces were the very men from whom he expected -preferment. "I well remember," he says[29] elsewhere, "the clamours often -raised during the late reign of that party (the Whigs) against the leaders -by those who thought their merits were not rewarded; and they had, no -doubt, reason on their side, because it is, no doubt, a misfortune to -forfeit honour and conscience for nothing"--rather an awkward remark from -a man who was calling Somers "a false, deceitful rascal" for not giving -him a bishopric! His eager desire to make the "ungrateful dogs" repent -their ill-usage of him prompts attacks which injure his own character with -that of his former associates. But he has some ground for saying that -Whigs have changed their principles, in the sense that their dislike of -prerogative and of standing armies had curiously declined when the Crown -and the army came to be on their side. Their enjoyment of power had made -them soften some of the prejudices learnt in days of depression. Swift's -dislike of what we now call "militarism" really went deeper than any party -sentiment; and in that sense, as we shall hereafter see, it had really -most affinity with a radicalism which would have shocked Whigs and Tories -alike. But in this particular case it fell in with the Tory sentiment. The -masculine vigour of the _Examiners_ served the ministry, who were scarcely -less in danger from the excessive zeal of their more bigoted followers -than from the resistance of the Whig minority. The pig-headed country -squires had formed an October Club, to muddle themselves with beer and -politics, and hoped--good honest souls--to drive ministers into a genuine -attack on the corrupt practices of their predecessors. All Harley's skill -in intriguing and wire-pulling would be needed. The ministry, said Swift -(on March 4th), "stood like an isthmus" between Whigs and violent Tories. -He trembled for the result. They are able seamen, but the tempest "is too -great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them." Somers had -been twice in the queen's closet. The Duchess of Somerset, who had -succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough, might be trying to play Mrs. -Masham's game. Harley, "though the most fearless man alive," seemed to be -nervous, and was far from well. "Pray God preserve his health," says -Swift; "everything depends upon it." Four days later, Swift is in an -agony. "My heart," he exclaims, "is almost broken." Harley had been -stabbed by Guiscard (March 8th, 1711) at the council-board. Swift's -letters and journals show an agitation, in which personal affection seems -to be even stronger than political anxiety. "Pray pardon my distraction," -he says to Stella, in broken sentences. "I now think of all his kindness -to me. The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French -popish villain. Good night, and God bless you both, and pity me; I want -it." He wrote to King under the same excitement. Harley, he says, "has -always treated me with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused me -any favour I asked for a friend; therefore I hope your Grace will excuse -the character of this letter." He apologizes again in a postscript for his -confusion; it must be imputed to the "violent pain of mind I am -in--greater than ever I felt in my life." The danger was not over for -three weeks. The chief effect seems to have been that Harley became -popular as the intended victim of an hypothetical Popish conspiracy; he -introduced an applauded financial scheme in Parliament after his recovery, -and was soon afterwards made Earl of Oxford by way of consolation. "This -man," exclaimed Swift, "has grown by persecutions, turnings out, and -stabbings. What waiting and crowding and bowing there will be at his -levee!" - -Swift had meanwhile (April 26) retired to Chelsea "for the air," and to -have the advantage of a compulsory walk into town (two miles, or 5748 -steps each way, he calculates). He was liable, indeed, to disappointment -on a rainy day, when "all the three stage-coaches" were taken up by the -"cunning natives of Chelsea;" but he got a lift to town in a gentleman's -coach for a shilling. He bathed in the river on the hot nights, with his -Irish servant, Patrick, standing on the bank to warn off passing boats. -The said Patrick, who is always getting drunk, whom Swift cannot find it -in his heart to dismiss in England, who atones for his general -carelessness and lying by buying a linnet for Dingley, making it wilder -than ever in his attempts to tame it, is a characteristic figure in the -journal. In June Swift gets ten days' holiday at Wycombe, and in the -summer he goes down pretty often with the ministers to Windsor. He came to -town in two hours and forty minutes on one occasion: "twenty miles are -nothing here." The journeys are described in one of the happiest of his -occasional poems-- - - 'Tis (let me see) three years or more - (October next it will be four) - Since Harley bid me first attend - And chose me for an humble friend: - Would take me in his coach to chat - And question me of this or that: - As "What's o'clock?" and "How's the wind?" - "Whose chariot's that we left behind?" - Or gravely try to read the lines - Writ underneath the country signs. - Or, "Have you nothing new to-day, - From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?" - Such tattle often entertains - My lord and me as far as Staines, - As once a week we travel down - To Windsor, and again to town, - Where all that passes _inter nos_ - Might be proclaimed at Charing Cross. - -And when, it is said, St. John was disgusted by the frivolous amusements -of his companions; and his political discourses might be interrupted by -Harley's exclamation, "Swift, I am up; there's a cat"--the first who saw a -cat or an old woman, winning the game. - -Swift and Harley were soon playing a more exciting game. Prior had been -sent to France to renew peace negotiations, with elaborate mystery. Even -Swift was kept in ignorance. On his return Prior was arrested by -officious custom-house officers, and the fact of his journey became -public. Swift took advantage of the general interest by a pamphlet -intended to "bite the town." Its political purpose, according to Swift, -was to "furnish fools with something to talk of;" to draw a false scent -across the trail of the angry and suspicious Whigs. It seems difficult to -believe that any such effect could be produced or anticipated; but the -pamphlet, which purports to be an account of Prior's journey given by a -French valet, desirous of passing himself off as a secretary, is an -amusing example of Swift's power of grave simulation of realities. The -peace negotiations brought on a decisive political struggle. Parliament -was to meet in September. The Whigs resolved to make a desperate effort. -They had lost the House of Commons, but were still strong in the Peers. -The Lords were not affected by the rapid oscillations of public opinion. -They were free from some of the narrower prejudices of country squires, -and true to a revolution which gave the chief power for more than a -century to the aristocracy: while the recent creations had ennobled the -great Whig leaders, and filled the bench with low churchmen. Marlborough -and Godolphin had come over to the Whig junto, and an additional alliance -was now made. Nottingham had been passed over by Harley, as it seems, for -his extreme Tory principles. In his wrath, he made an agreement with the -other extreme. By one of the most disgraceful bargains of party history, -Nottingham was to join the Whigs in attacking the peace, whilst the Whigs -were to buy his support by accepting the Occasional Conformity Bill--the -favourite high church measure. A majority in the House of Lords could not -indeed determine the victory. The Government of England, says Swift in -1715,[30] "cannot move a step while the House of Commons continues to -dislike proceedings or persons employed." But the plot went further. The -House of Lords might bring about a deadlock, as it had done before. The -queen, having thrown off the rule of the Duchess of Marlborough, had -sought safety in the rule of two mistresses, Mrs. Masham and the Duchess -of Somerset. The Duchess of Somerset was in the Whig interest; and her -influence with the queen caused the gravest anxiety to Swift and the -ministry. She might induce Anne to call back the Whigs, and in a new House -of Commons, elected under a Whig ministry wielding the crown influence and -appealing to the dread of a discreditable peace, the majority might be -reversed. Meanwhile Prince Eugene was expected to pay a visit to England, -bringing fresh proposals for war, and stimulating by his presence the -enthusiasm of the Whigs. - -Towards the end of September the Whigs began to pour in a heavy fire of -pamphlets, and Swift rather meanly begs the help of St. John and the law. -But he is confident of victory. Peace is certain; and a peace "very much -to the honour and advantage of England." The Whigs are furious; "but we'll -wherret them, I warrant, boys." Yet he has misgivings. The news comes of -the failure of the Tory expedition against Quebec, which was to have -anticipated the policy and the triumphs of Chatham. Harley only laughs as -usual; but St. John is cruelly vexed, and begins to suspect his colleagues -of suspecting him. Swift listens to both, and tries to smooth matters; but -he is growing serious. "I am half weary of them all," he exclaims, and -begins to talk of retiring to Ireland. Harley has a slight illness, and -Swift is at once in a fright. "We are all undone without him," he says, -"so pray for him, sirrahs!" Meanwhile, as the parliamentary struggle comes -nearer, Swift launches the pamphlet which has been his summer's work. The -_Conduct of the Allies_ is intended to prove what he had taken for granted -in the _Examiners_. It is to show, that is, that the war has ceased to be -demanded by national interests. We ought always to have been auxiliaries; -we chose to become principals; and have yet so conducted the war that all -the advantages have gone to the Dutch. The explanation of course is the -selfishness or corruption of the great Whig junto. The pamphlet, forcible -and terse in the highest degree, had a success due in part to other -circumstances. It was as much a State paper as a pamphlet; a manifesto -obviously inspired by the ministry and containing the facts and papers -which were to serve in the coming debates. It was published on Nov. 27th; -on December 1st the second edition was sold in five hours; and by the end -of January 11,000 copies had been sold. The parliamentary struggle began -on December 7th; and the amendment to the address, declaring that no peace -could be safe which left Spain to the Bourbons, was moved by Nottingham, -and carried by a small majority. Swift had foreseen this danger; he had -begged ministers to work up the majority; and the defeat was due to -Harley's carelessness. It was Swift's temper to anticipate though not to -yield to the worst. He could see nothing but ruin. Every rumour increased -his fears, The queen had taken the hand of the Duke of Somerset on leaving -the House of Lords, and refused Shrewsbury's. She must be going over. -Swift, in his despair, asked St. John to find him some foreign post, where -he might be out of harm's way if the Whigs should triumph. St. John -laughed and affected courage, but Swift refused to be comforted. Harley -told him that "all would be well;" but Harley for the moment had lost his -confidence. A week after the vote he looks upon the ministry as certainly -ruined; and "God knows," he adds, "what may be the consequences." By -degrees a little hope began to appear; though the ministry, as Swift still -held, could expect nothing till the Duchess of Somerset was turned out. By -way of accelerating this event, he hit upon a plan, which he had reason to -repent, and which nothing but his excitement could explain. He composed -and printed one of his favourite squibs, the _Windsor Prophecy_, and -though Mrs. Masham persuaded him not to publish it, distributed too many -copies for secrecy to be possible. In this production, now dull enough, he -calls the duchess "carrots," as a delicate hint at her red hair, and says -that she murdered her second husband.[31] These statements, even if true, -were not conciliatory; and it was folly to irritate without injuring. -Meanwhile reports of ministerial plans gave him a little courage; and in a -day or two the secret was out. He was on his way to the post on Saturday, -December 28th, when the great news came. The ministry had resolved on -something like a _coup d'état_, to be long mentioned with horror by all -orthodox Whigs and Tories. "I have broke open my letter," scribbled Swift -in a coffee-house, "and tore it into the bargain, to let you know that we -are all safe. The queen has made no less than twelve new peers ... and has -turned out the Duke of Somerset. She is awaked at last, and so is Lord -Treasurer. I want nothing now but to see the duchess out. But we shall do -without her. We are all extremely happy. Give me joy, sirrahs!" The Duke -of Somerset was not out; but a greater event happened within three days; -the Duke of Marlborough was removed from all his employments. The Tory -victory was for the time complete. - -Here, too, was the culminating point of Swift's career. Fifteen months of -energetic effort had been crowned with success. He was the intimate of the -greatest men in the country; and the most powerful exponent of their -policy. No man in England, outside the ministry, enjoyed a wider -reputation. The ball was at his feet; and no position open to a clergyman -beyond his hopes. Yet from this period begins a decline. He continued to -write, publishing numerous squibs, of which many have been lost, and -occasionally firing a gun of heavier metal. But nothing came from him -having the authoritative and masterly tone of the _Conduct of the Allies_. -His health broke down. At the beginning of April, 1712, he was attacked by -a distressing complaint; and his old enemy, giddiness, gave him frequent -alarms. The daily journal ceased, and was not fairly resumed till -December, though its place is partly supplied by occasional letters. The -political contest had changed its character. The centre of interest was -transferred to Utrecht, where negotiations began in January, to be -protracted over fifteen months: the ministry had to satisfy the demand for -peace, without shocking the national self-esteem. Meanwhile jealousies -were rapidly developing themselves, which Swift watched with ever-growing -anxiety. - -Swift's personal influence remained or increased. He drew closer to -Oxford, but was still friendly with St. John; and to the public his -position seemed more imposing than ever. Swift was not the man to bear his -honours meekly. In the early period of his acquaintance with St. John -(February 12, 1711), he sends the Prime Minister into the House of -Commons, to tell the Secretary of State that "I would not dine with him if -he dined late." He is still a novice at the Saturday dinners when the Duke -of Shrewsbury appears: Swift whispers that he does not like to see a -stranger among them; and St. John has to explain that the Duke has written -for leave. St. John then tells Swift that the Duke of Buckingham desires -his acquaintance. The Duke, replied Swift, has not made sufficient -advances: and he always expects greater advances from men in proportion to -their rank. Dukes and great men yielded, if only to humour the pride of -this audacious parson: and Swift soon came to be pestered by innumerable -applicants, attracted by his ostentation of influence. Even ministers -applied through him. "There is not one of them," he says, in January, -1713, "but what will employ me as gravely to speak for them to Lord -Treasurer, as if I were their brother or his." He is proud of the burden -of influence with the great, though he affects to complain. The most vivid -picture of Swift in all his glory, is in a familiar passage from Bishop -Kennett's diary:-- - - "Swift," says Kennett, in 1713, "came into the coffee-house, and had a - bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber to wait - before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business, - and acted as minister of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran - to speak to his brother the Duke of Ormond to get a chaplain's place - established in the garrison of Hull, for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in - that neighbourhood, who had lately been in jail, and published sermons - to pay fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my Lord - Treasurer that according to his petition he should obtain a salary of - 200_l._ per annum, as minister of the English Church at Rotterdam. He - stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the queen, and - told him aloud he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. - He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant to be sent abroad, and took out - his pocket-book and wrote down several things as _memoranda_, to do - for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and - telling him the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman - said, "it was too fast." "How can I help it," says the Doctor, "if the - courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?" Then he instructed a - young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), - who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which, he - said, he must have them all subscribe. 'For,' says he, 'the author - _shall not_ begin to print till _I have_ a thousand guineas for him.' - Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, - beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him; both went off just before prayers." - -There is undoubtedly something offensive in this blustering -self-assertion. "No man," says Johnson, with his usual force, "can pay a -more servile tribute to the great than by suffering his liberty in their -presence to aggrandize him in his own esteem." Delicacy was not Swift's -strong point; his compliments are as clumsy as his invectives are -forcible; and he shows a certain taint of vulgarity in his intercourse -with social dignitaries. He is perhaps avenging himself for the -humiliations received at Moor Park. He has a Napoleonic absence of -magnanimity. He likes to relish his triumph; to accept the pettiest as -well as the greatest rewards; to flaunt his splendours in the eyes of the -servile as well as to enjoy the consciousness of real power. But it would -be a great mistake to infer that this ostentatiousness of authority -concealed real servility. Swift preferred to take the bull by the horns. -He forced himself upon ministers by self-assertion; and he held them in -awe of him as the lion-tamer keeps down the latent ferocity of the wild -beast. He never takes his eye off his subjects, nor lowers his imperious -demeanour. He retained his influence, as Johnson observes, long after his -services had ceased to be useful. And all this demonstrative patronage -meant real and energetic work. We may note, for example, and it -incidentally confirms Kennett's accuracy, that he was really serviceable -to Davenant,[32] and that Fiddes got the chaplaincy at Hull. No man ever -threw himself with more energy into the service of his friends. He -declared afterwards that in the days of his credit he had done fifty times -more for fifty people, from whom he had received no obligations, than -Temple had done for him.[33] The journal abounds in proofs that this was -not overstated. There is "Mr. Harrison," for example, who has written -"some mighty pretty things." Swift takes him up; rescues him from the fine -friends who are carelessly tempting him to extravagance; tries to start -him in a continuation of the _Tatler_; exults in getting him a -secretaryship abroad, which he declares to be "the prettiest post in -Europe for a young gentleman;" and is most unaffectedly and deeply grieved -when the poor lad dies of a fever. He is carrying 100_l._ to his young -friend, when he hears of his death. "I told Parnell I was afraid to knock -at the door, my mind misgave me," he says. On his way to bring help to -Harrison, he goes to see a "poor poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret, -very sick," and consoles him with twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke. A -few days before he has managed to introduce Parnell to Harley, or rather -to contrive it so that "the ministry desire to be acquainted with Parnell, -and not Parnell with the ministry." His old schoolfellow Congreve was in -alarm about his appointments. Swift spoke at once to Harley, and went off -immediately to report his success to Congreve: "so," he says, "I have made -a worthy man easy, and that is a good day's work."[34] One of the latest -letters in his journal refers to his attempt to serve his other -schoolfellow, Berkeley. "I will favour him as much as I can," he says; -"this I think I am bound to in honour and conscience, to use all my little -credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world." He was always -helping less conspicuous men; and he prided himself, with justice, that he -had been as helpful to Whigs as to Tories. The ministry complained that he -never came to them "without a Whig in his sleeve." Besides his friend -Congreve, he recommended Rowe for preferment, and did his best to protect -Steele and Addison. No man of letters ever laboured more heartily to -promote the interests of his fellow-craftsmen, as few have ever had -similar opportunities. - -Swift, it is plain, desired to use his influence magnificently. He hoped -to make his reign memorable by splendid patronage of literature. The great -organ of munificence was the famous Brothers' Club, of which he was the -animating spirit. It was founded in June, 1711, during Swift's absence at -Wycombe; it was intended to "advance conversation and friendship," and -obtain patronage for deserving persons. It was to include none but wits -and men able to help wits, and, "if we go on as we begun," says Swift, "no -other club in this town will be worth talking of." In March, 1712, it -consisted, as Swift tells us, of nine lords and ten commoners.[35] It -excluded Harley and the Lord Keeper (Harcourt) apparently as they were to -be the distributors of the patronage; but it included St. John and several -leading ministers, Harley's son and son-in-law, and Harcourt's son; whilst -literature was represented by Swift, Arbuthnot, Prior, and Friend, all of -whom were more or less actively employed by the ministry. The club was -therefore composed of the ministry and their dependents, though it had not -avowedly a political colouring. It dined on Thursday during the -Parliamentary session, when the political squibs of the day were often -laid on the table, including Swift's famous _Windsor Prophecy_, and -subscriptions were sometimes collected for such men as Diaper and -Harrison. It flourished, however, for little more than the first season. -In the winter of 1712-13 it began to suffer from the common disease of -such institutions. Swift began to complain bitterly of the extravagance of -the charges. He gets the club to leave a tavern in which the bill[36] "for -four dishes and four, first and second course, without wine and drink," -had been 21_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ The number of guests, it seems, was fourteen. -Next winter the charges are divided. "It cost me nineteen shillings to-day -for my club dinner," notes Swift, Dec. 18, 1712. "I don't like it." Swift -had a high value for every one of the nineteen shillings. The meetings -became irregular: Harley was ready to give promises, but no patronage: and -Swift's attendance falls off. Indeed, it may be noted that he found -dinners and suppers full of danger to his health. He constantly complains -of their after-effects; and partly perhaps for that reason he early ceases -to frequent coffee-houses. Perhaps too his contempt for coffee-house -society, and the increasing dignity which made it desirable to keep -possible applicants at a distance, had much to do with this. The Brothers' -Club, however, was long remembered by its members, and in later years they -often address each other by the old fraternal title. - -One design which was to have signalized Swift's period of power, suggested -the only paper which he had ever published with his name. It was a -"proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English -language," published in May, 1712, in the form of a letter to Harley. The -letter itself, written offhand in six hours (Feb. 21, 1712), is not of -much value; but Swift recurs to the subject frequently enough to show that -he really hoped to be the founder of an English Academy. Had Swift been -his own minister instead of the driver of a minister, the project might -have been started. The rapid development of the political struggle sent -Swift's academy to the limbo provided for such things; and few English -authors will regret the failure of a scheme unsuited to our natural -idiosyncrasy, and calculated, as I fancy, to end in nothing but an -organization of pedantry. - -One remark meanwhile occurs which certainly struck Swift himself. He says -(March 17, 1712) that Sacheverel, the Tory martyr, has come to him for -patronage, and observes that when he left Ireland neither of them could -have anticipated such a relationship. "This," he adds, "is the seventh I -have now provided for since I came, and can do nothing for myself." Hints -at a desire for preferment do not appear for some time; but as he is -constantly speaking of an early return to Ireland, and is as regularly -held back by the entreaties of the ministry, there must have been at least -an implied promise. A hint had been given that he might be made chaplain -to Harley, when the minister became Earl of Oxford. "I will be no man's -chaplain alive," he says. He remarks about the same time (May 23, 1711) -that it "would look extremely little" if he returned without some -distinction; but he will not beg for preferment. The ministry, he says in -the following August, only want him for one bit of business (the _Conduct -of the Allies_ presumably). When that is done, he will take his leave of -them. "I never got a penny from them nor expect it." The only post for -which he made a direct application was that of historiographer. He had -made considerable preparations for his so-called _History of the Last Four -Years of Queen Anne_, which appeared posthumously; and which may be -described as one of his political pamphlets without the vigour[37]--a dull -statement of facts put together by a partisan affecting the historical -character. This application, however, was not made till April, 1714, when -Swift was possessed of all the preferment that he was destined to receive. -He considered in his haughty way that he should be entreated rather than -entreat; and ministers were perhaps slow to give him anything which could -take him away from them. A secret influence was at work against him. The -_Tale of a Tub_ was brought up against him; and imputations upon his -orthodoxy were common. Nottingham even revenged himself by describing -Swift in the House of Lords as a divine "who is hardly suspected of being -a Christian." Such insinuations were also turned to account by the Duchess -of Somerset, who retained her influence over Anne in spite of Swift's -attacks. His journal in the winter of 1712-13 shows growing discontent. In -December, 1712, he resolves to write no more till something is done for -him. He will get under shelter before he makes more enemies. He declares -that he is "soliciting nothing" (February 4, 1713), but he is growing -impatient. Harley is kinder than ever. "Mighty kind!" exclaims Swift, -"with a ----; less of civility and more of interest;" or as he puts it in -one of his favourite "proverbs" soon afterwards--"my grandmother used to -say,-- - - More of your lining - And less of your dining." - -At last Swift, hearing that he was again to be passed over, gave a -positive intimation that he would retire if nothing was done; adding that -he should complain of Harley for nothing but neglecting to inform him -sooner of the hopelessness of his position.[38] The dean of St. Patrick's -was at last promoted to a bishopric, and Swift appointed to the vacant -deanery. The warrant was signed on April 23, and in June Swift set out to -take possession of his deanery. It was no great prize; he would have to -pay 1000_l._ for the house and fees, and thus, he says, it would be three -years before he would be the richer for it; and, moreover, it involved -what he already described as "banishment" to a country which he hated. - -His state of mind when entering upon his preferment was painfully -depressed. "At my first coming," he writes to Miss Vanhomrigh, "I thought -I should have died with discontent; and was horribly melancholy while they -were installing me; but it begins to wear off, and change to dulness." -This depression is singular, when we remember that Swift was returning to -the woman for whom he had the strongest affection, and from whom he had -been separated for nearly three years; and moreover, that he was returning -as a famous and a successful man. He seems to have been received with some -disfavour by a society of Whig proclivities; he was suffering from a fresh -return of ill-health; and besides the absence from the political struggles -in which he was so keenly interested, he could not think of them without -deep anxiety. He returned to London in October at the earnest request of -political friends. Matters were looking serious; and though the journal to -Stella was not again taken up, we can pretty well trace the events of the -following period. - -There can rarely have been a less congenial pair of colleagues than Harley -and St. John. Their union was that of a still more brilliant, daring, and -self-confident Disraeli with a very inferior edition of Sir Robert Peel, -with smaller intellect and exaggerated infirmities. The timidity, -procrastination, and "refinement" of the Treasurer were calculated to -exasperate his audacious colleague. From the earliest period Swift had -declared that everything depended upon the good mutual understanding of -the two; he was frightened by every symptom of discord, and declares (in -August, 1711) that he has ventured all his credit with the Ministers to -remove their differences. He knew, as he afterwards said (October 20, -1711), that this was the way to be sent back to his willows at Laracor, -but everything must be risked in such a case. When difficulties revived -next year he hoped that he had made a reconciliation. But the discord was -too vital. The victory of the Tories brought on a serious danger. They had -come into power to make peace. They had made it. The next question was -that of the succession of the crown. Here they neither reflected the -general opinion of the nation nor were agreed amongst themselves. Harley, -as we now know, had flirted with the Jacobites; and Bolingbroke was deep -in treasonable plots. The existence of such plots was a secret to Swift, -who indignantly denied their existence. When King hinted at a possible -danger to Swift from the discovery of St. John's treason, he indignantly -replied that he must have been "a most false and vile man" to join in -anything of the kind.[39] He professes elsewhere his conviction that there -were not at this period 500 Jacobites in England; and "amongst these not -six of any quality or consequence."[40] Swift's sincerity, here as -everywhere, is beyond all suspicion; but his conviction proves -incidentally that he was in the dark as to the "wheels within wheels"--the -backstairs plots, by which the administration of his friends was hampered -and distracted. With so many causes for jealousy and discord, it is no -wonder that the political world became a mass of complex intrigue and -dispute. The queen, meanwhile, might die at any moment, and some decided -course of action become imperatively necessary. Whenever the queen was -ill, said Harley, people were at their wits' end; as soon as she recovered -they acted as if she were immortal. Yet, though he complained of the -general indecision, his own conduct was most hopelessly undecided. - -It was in the hopes of pacifying these intrigues that Swift was recalled -from Ireland. He plunged into the fight, but not with his old success. Two -pamphlets which he published at the end of 1713 are indications of his -state of mind. One was an attack upon a wild no-popery shriek emitted by -Bishop Burnet, whom he treats, says Johnson, "like one whom he is glad of -an opportunity to insult." A man who, like Burnet, is on friendly terms -with those who assail the privileges of his order must often expect such -treatment from its zealous adherents. Yet the scornful assault, which -finds out weak places enough in Burnet's mental rhetoric, is in painful -contrast to the dignified argument of earlier pamphlets. The other -pamphlet was an incident in a more painful contest. Swift had tried to -keep on good terms with Addison and Steele. He had prevented Steele's -dismissal from a Commissionership of Stamps. Steele, however, had lost his -place of Gazetteer for an attack upon Harley. Swift persuaded Harley to be -reconciled to Steele, on condition that Steele should apologize. Addison -prevented Steele from making the required submission, "out of mere spite," -says Swift, at the thought that Steele should require other help; rather, -we guess, because Addison thought that the submission would savour of -party infidelity. A coldness followed; "all our friendship is over," says -Swift of Addison (March 6th, 1711); and though good feeling revived -between the principals, their intimacy ceased. Swift, swept into the -ministerial vortex, pretty well lost sight of Addison; though they now and -then met on civil terms. Addison dined with Swift and St. John upon April -3rd, 1713, and Swift attended a rehearsal of _Cato_--the only time when we -see him at a theatre. Meanwhile the ill feeling to Steele remained, and -bore bitter fruit. - -Steele and Addison had to a great extent retired from politics, and during -the eventful years 1711-12 were chiefly occupied in the politically -harmless _Spectator_. But Steele was always ready to find vent for his -zeal; and in 1713 he fell foul of the _Examiner_ in the _Guardian_. Swift -had long ceased to write _Examiners_ or to be responsible for the conduct -of the paper, though he still occasionally inspired the writers. Steele, -naturally enough, supposed Swift to be still at work; and in defending a -daughter of Steele's enemy, Nottingham, not only suggested that Swift was -her assailant, but added an insinuation that Swift was an infidel. The -imputation stung Swift to the quick. He had a sensibility to personal -attacks, not rare with those who most freely indulge in them, which was -ridiculed by the easy-going Harley. An attack from an old friend--from a -friend whose good opinion he still valued, though their intimacy had -ceased; from a friend, moreover, whom in spite of their separation he had -tried to protect; and, finally, an attack upon the tenderest part of his -character, irritated him beyond measure. Some angry letters passed, Steele -evidently regarding Swift as a traitor, and disbelieving his professions -of innocence and his claims to active kindness; whilst Swift felt Steele's -ingratitude the more deeply from the apparent plausibility of the -accusation. If Steele was really unjust and ungenerous, we may admit as a -partial excuse that in such cases the less prosperous combatant has a kind -of right to bitterness. The quarrel broke out at the time of Swift's -appointment to the deanery. Soon after the new dean's return to England, -Steele was elected member for Stockbridge, and rushed into political -controversy. His most conspicuous performance was a frothy and pompous -pamphlet called the _Crisis_, intended to rouse alarms as to French -invasion and Jacobite intrigues. Swift took the opportunity to revenge -himself upon Steele. Two pamphlets--_The importance of the "Guardian" -considered_, and _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_ (the latter in answer to -the _Crisis_)--are fierce attacks upon Steele personally and politically. -Swift's feeling comes out sufficiently in a remark in the first. He -reverses the saying about Cranmer, and says that he may affirm of Steele, -"Do him a good turn, and he is your enemy for ever." There is vigorous -writing enough, and effective ridicule of Steele's literary style and -political alarmism. But it is painfully obvious, as in the attack upon -Burnet, that personal animosity is now the predominant instead of an -auxiliary feeling. Swift is anxious beyond all things to mortify and -humiliate an antagonist. And he is in proportion less efficient as a -partizan, though more amusing. He has, moreover, the disadvantage of being -politically on the defensive. He is no longer proclaiming a policy, but -endeavouring to disavow the policy attributed to his party. The wrath -which breaks forth, and the bitter personality with which it is edged, -were far more calculated to irritate his opponents than to disarm the -lookers-on of their suspicions. - -Part of the fury was no doubt due to the growing unsoundness of his -political position. Steele in the beginning of 1714 was expelled from the -House for the _Crisis_; and an attack made upon Swift in the House of -Lords for an incidental outburst against the hated Scots in his reply to -the _Crisis_, was only staved off by a manoeuvre of the ministry. -Meanwhile Swift was urging the necessity of union upon men who hated each -other more than they regarded any public cause whatever. Swift at last -brought his two patrons together in Lady Masham's lodgings, and entreated -them to be reconciled. If, he said, they would agree, all existing -mischiefs could be remedied in two minutes. If they would not, the -ministry would be ruined in two months. Bolingbroke assented: Oxford -characteristically shuffled, said "all would be well," and asked Swift to -dine with him next day. Swift, however, said that he would not stay to see -the inevitable catastrophe. It was his natural instinct to hide his head -in such moments; his intensely proud and sensitive nature could not bear -to witness the triumph of his enemies, and he accordingly retired at the -end of May, 1714, to the quiet parsonage of Upper Letcombe in Berkshire. -The public wondered and speculated; friends wrote letters describing the -scenes which followed, and desiring Swift's help; and he read, and walked, -and chewed the cud of melancholy reflection, and thought of stealing away -to Ireland. He wrote, however, a very remarkable pamphlet, giving his view -of the situation, which was not published at the time; events went too -fast. - -Swift's conduct at this critical point is most noteworthy. The pamphlet -(_Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs_) exactly coincides with -all his private and public utterances. His theory was simple and -straightforward. The existing situation was the culminating result of -Harley's policy of refinement and procrastination. Swift two years before -had written a very able remonstrance with the October Club, who had -sought to push Harley into decisive measures; but though he preached -patience, he really sympathized with their motives. Instead of making a -clean sweep of his opponents, Harley had left many of them in office, -either from "refinement"--that over-subtlety of calculation which Swift -thought inferior to plain common sense, and which, to use his favourite -illustration, is like the sharp knife that mangles the paper, when a -plain, blunt paper-knife cuts it properly--or else from inability to move -the Queen, which he had foolishly allowed to pass for unwillingness, in -order to keep up the appearance of power. Two things were now to be done; -first, a clean sweep should be made of all Whigs and dissenters from -office and from the army; secondly, the Court of Hanover should be -required to break off all intercourse with the Opposition, on which -condition the heir-presumptive (the infant Prince Frederick) might be sent -over to reside in England. Briefly, Swift's policy was a policy of -"thorough." Oxford's vacillations were the great obstacle, and Oxford was -falling before the alliance of Bolingbroke with Lady Masham. Bolingbroke -might have turned Swift's policy to the account of the Jacobites; but -Swift did not take this into account, and in the _Free Thoughts_ he -declares his utter disbelief in any danger to the succession. What side, -then, should he take? He sympathized with Bolingbroke's avowed principles. -Bolingbroke was eager for his help, and even hoped to reconcile him to the -red-haired duchess. But Swift was bound to Oxford by strong personal -affection; by an affection which was not diminished even by the fact that -Oxford had procrastinated in the matter of Swift's own preferment; and -was, at this very moment, annoying him by delaying to pay the 1000_l._ -incurred by his installation in the deanery. To Oxford he had addressed -(Nov. 21, 1713) a letter of consolation upon the death of a daughter, -possessing the charm which is given to such letters only by the most -genuine sympathy with the feelings of the loser, and by a spontaneous -selection of the only safe topic--praise of the lost, equally tender and -sincere. Every reference to Oxford is affectionate. When, at the beginning -of July, Oxford was hastening to his fall, Swift wrote to him another -manly and dignified letter, professing an attachment beyond the reach of -external accidents of power and rank. The end came soon. Swift heard that -Oxford was about to resign. He wrote at once (July 25, 1714) to propose to -accompany him to his country house. Oxford replied two days later in a -letter oddly characteristic. He begs Swift to come with him; "If I have -not tired you _tête-à-tête_, fling away so much of your time upon one who -loves you;" and then rather spoils the pathos by a bit of hopeless -doggerel. Swift wrote to Miss Vanhomrigh on August 1. "I have been asked," -he says, "to join with those people now in power; but I will not do it. I -told Lord Oxford I would go with him, when he was out; and now he begs it -of me, and I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his faults, as he was a -Minister of State; but you know his personal kindness to me was excessive; -he distinguished and chose me above all other men, while he was great, and -his letter to me the other day was the most moving imaginable." - -An intimacy which bore such fruit in time of trial was not one founded -upon a servility varnished by self-assertion. No stauncher friend than -Swift ever lived. But his fidelity was not to be put to further proof. The -day of the letter just quoted was the day of Queen Anne's death. The crash -which followed ruined the "people now in power" as effectually as Oxford. -The party with which Swift had identified himself, in whose success all -his hopes and ambitions were bound up, was not so much ruined as -annihilated. "The Earl of Oxford," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift, "was -removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and -how does fortune banter us!" - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -STELLA AND VANESSA. - - -The final crash of the Tory administration found Swift approaching the end -of his forty-seventh year. It found him in his own opinion prematurely -aged both in mind and body. His personal prospects and political hopes -were crushed. "I have a letter from Dean Swift," says Arbuthnot in -September; "he keeps up his noble spirit, and though like a man knocked -down, you may behold him still with a stern countenance and aiming a blow -at his adversaries." Yet his adversaries knew, and he knew only too well, -that such blows as he could now deliver could at most show his wrath -without gratifying his revenge. He was disarmed as well as "knocked down." -He writes to Bolingbroke from Dublin in despair. "I live a country life in -town," he says, "see nobody, and go every day once to prayers, and hope in -a few months to grow as stupid as the present situation of affairs will -require. Well, after all, parsons are not such bad company, especially -when they are under subjection; and I let none but such come near me." -Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond were soon in exile or the tower; and a -letter to Pope next year gives a sufficient picture of Swift's feelings. -"You know," he said, "how well I loved both Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, -and how dear the Duke of Ormond is to me; do you imagine I can be easy -while their enemies are endeavouring to take off their heads?--_I nunc et -versus tecum meditare canoros!_" "You are to understand," he says in -conclusion, "that I live in the corner of a vast unfurnished house; my -family consists of a steward, a groom, a helper in the stable, a footman, -and an old maid, who are all at board wages, and when I do not dine abroad -or make an entertainment (which last is very rare), I eat a mutton pie and -drink half a pint of wine; my amusements are defending my small dominions -against the archbishop, and endeavouring to reduce my rebellious choir. -_Perditur hæc inter misero lux._" In another of the dignified letters -which show the finest side of his nature, he offered to join Oxford, whose -intrepid behaviour, he says, "has astonished every one but me, who know -you so well." But he could do nothing beyond showing sympathy; and he -remained alone asserting his authority in his ecclesiastical domains, -brooding over the past, and for the time unable to divert his thoughts -into any less distressing channel. Some verses written in October "in -sickness" give a remarkable expression of his melancholy,-- - - 'Tis true--then why should I repine - To see my life so fast decline? - But why obscurely here alone - Where I am neither loved nor known? - My state of health none care to learn, - My life is here no soul's concern, - And those with whom I now converse - Without a tear will tend my hearse. - -Yet we might have fancied that his lot would not be so unbearable. After -all, a fall which ends in a deanery should break no bones. His friends, -though hard pressed, survived; and, lastly, was any one so likely to shed -tears upon his hearse as the woman to whom he was finally returning? The -answer to this question brings us to a story imperfectly known to us, but -of vital importance in Swift's history. - -We have seen in what masterful fashion Swift took possession of great men. -The same imperious temper shows itself in his relations to women. He -required absolute submission. Entrance into the inner circle of his -affections could only be achieved by something like abasement; but all -within it became as a part of himself, to be both cherished and protected -without stint. His affectation of brutality was part of a system. On first -meeting Lady Burlington at her husband's house, he ordered her to sing. -She declined. He replied, "Sing, or I will make you. Why, madam, I suppose -you take me for one of your English hedge-parsons; sing when I tell you." -She burst into tears and retired. The next time he met her he began, -"Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured as when I saw you last?" -She good-humouredly gave in, and Swift became her warm friend. Another -lady to whom he was deeply attached was a famous beauty, Anne Long. A -whimsical treaty was drawn up, setting forth that "the said Dr. Swift, -upon the score of his merit and extraordinary qualities, doth claim the -sole and undoubted right that all persons whatever shall make such advance -to him as he pleases to demand, any law, claim, custom, privilege of sex, -beauty, fortune or quality to the contrary notwithstanding;" and providing -that Miss Long shall cease the contumacy in which she has been abetted by -the Vanhomrighs, but be allowed in return, in consideration of her being -"a Lady of the Toast," to give herself the reputation of being one of -Swift's acquaintance. Swift's affection for Miss Long is touchingly -expressed in private papers, and in a letter written upon her death in -retirement and poverty. He intends to put up a monument to her memory, and -wrote a notice of her, "to serve her memory," and also, as he -characteristically adds, to spite the brother who had neglected her. Years -afterwards he often refers to the "edict" which he annually issued in -England, commanding all ladies to make him the first advances. He -graciously makes an exception in favour of the Duchess of Queensberry, -though he observes incidentally that he now hates all people whom he -cannot command. This humorous assumption, like all Swift's humour, has a -strong element of downright earnest. He gives whimsical prominence to a -genuine feeling. He is always acting the part of despot, and acting it -very gravely. When he stays at Sir Arthur Acheson's, Lady Acheson becomes -his pupil, and is "severely chid" when she reads wrong. Mrs. Pendarves, -afterwards Mrs. Delany, says in the same way that Swift calls himself "her -master," and corrects her when she speaks bad English.[41] He behaved in -the same way to his servants. Delany tells us that he was "one of the best -masters in the world," paid his servants the highest rate of wages known, -and took great pains to encourage and help them to save. But, on engaging -them, he always tested their humility. One of their duties, he told them, -would be to take turns in cleaning the scullion's shoes, and if they -objected, he sent them about their business. He is said to have tested a -curate's docility in the same way by offering him sour wine. His dominion -was most easily extended over women; and a long list might be easily made -out of the feminine favourites who at all periods of his life were in -more or less intimate relations with this self-appointed sultan. From the -wives of peers and the daughters of lord-lieutenants down to Dublin -tradeswomen with a taste for rhyming, and even scullerymaids with no -tastes at all, a whole hierarchy of female slaves bowed to his rule, and -were admitted into higher and lower degrees of favour. - -Esther Johnson, or Stella--to give her the name which she did not receive -until after the period of the famous journals--was one of the first of -these worshippers. As we have seen, he taught her to write, and when he -went to Laracor, she accepted the peculiar position already described. We -have no direct statement of their mutual feelings before the time of the -journal; but one remarkable incident must be noticed. During his stay in -England in 1703-4 Swift had some correspondence with a Dublin clergyman -named Tisdall. He afterwards regarded Tisdall with a contempt which, for -the present, is only half perceptible in some good-humoured raillery. -Tisdall's intimacy with "the ladies," Stella and Mrs. Dingley, is one -topic, and in the last of Swift's letters we find that Tisdall has -actually made an offer for Stella. Swift had replied in a letter (now -lost), which Tisdall called unfriendly, unkind, and unaccountable. Swift -meets these reproaches coolly, contemptuously, and straightforwardly. He -will not affect unconsciousness of Tisdall's meaning. Tisdall obviously -takes him for a rival in Stella's affections. Swift replies that he will -tell the naked truth. The truth is that "if his fortune and humour served -him to think of that state" (marriage) he would prefer Stella to any one -on earth. So much, he says, he has declared to Tisdall before. He did not, -however, think of his affection as an obstacle to Tisdall's hopes. -Tisdall had been too poor to marry; but the offer of a living has removed -that objection; and Swift undertakes to act what he has hitherto acted, a -friendly though passive part. He had thought, he declares, that the affair -had gone too far to be broken off; he had always spoken of Tisdall in -friendly terms; "no consideration of my own misfortune in losing so good a -friend and companion as her" shall prevail upon him to oppose the match, -"since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, -and that time takes off from the lustre of virgins in all other eyes but -mine." - -The letter must have suggested some doubts to Tisdall. Swift alleges as -his only reasons for not being a rival in earnest his "humour" and the -state of his fortune. The last obstacle might be removed at any moment. -Swift's prospects, though deferred, were certainly better than Tisdall's. -Unless, therefore, the humour was more insurmountable than is often the -case, Swift's coolness was remarkable or ominous. It may be that, as some -have held, there was nothing behind. But another possibility undoubtedly -suggests itself. Stella had received Tisdall's suit so unfavourably that -it was now suspended, and that it finally failed. Stella was corresponding -with Swift. It is easy to guess that between the "unaccountable" letter -and the contemptuous letter, Swift had heard something from Stella, which -put him thoroughly at ease in regard to Tisdall's attentions. - -We have no further information until, seven years afterwards, we reach the -_Journal to Stella_, and find ourselves overhearing the "little language." -The first editors scrupled at a full reproduction of what might strike an -unfriendly reader as almost drivelling; and Mr. Forster reprinted for the -first time the omitted parts of the still accessible letters. The little -language is a continuation of Stella's infantile prattle. Certain letters -are a cipher for pet names which may be conjectured. Swift calls himself -Pdfr, or Podefar, meaning, as Mr. Forster guesses, "Poor, dear Foolish -Rogue." Stella, or rather Esther Johnson, is Ppt, say "Poppet." MD, "my -dear," means Stella, and sometimes includes Mrs. Dingley. FW means -"farewell," or "foolish wenches;" Lele is taken by Mr. Forster to mean -"truly" or "lazy," or "there, there," or to have "other meanings not -wholly discoverable." The phrases come in generally by way of -leave-taking. "So I got into bed," he says, "to write to MD, MD, for we -must always write to MD, MD, MD, awake or asleep;" and he ends, "Go to -bed. Help pdfr. Rove pdfr, MD, MD. Nite darling rogues." Here is another -scrap, "I assure oo it im vely late now; but zis goes to-morrow; and I -must have time to converse with own deerichar MD. Nite de deer Sollahs." -One more leave-taking may be enough. "Farewell, dearest hearts and souls, -MD. Farewell, MD, MD, MD. FW, FW, FW. ME, ME. Lele, Lele, Lele, Sollahs, -Lele." - -The reference to the Golden Farmer already noted is in the words, "I -warrant oo don't remember the Golden Farmer neither, Figgarkick Solly," -and I will venture to a guess at what Mr. Forster pronounces to be -inexplicable.[42] May not Solly be the same as "Sollah," generally -interpreted by the editors as "sirrah;" and "Figgarkick" possibly be the -same as Pilgarlick, a phrase which he elsewhere applies to Stella,[43] and -which the dictionaries say means "poor, deserted creature"? - -Swift says that as he writes his language he "makes up his mouth just as -if he was speaking it." It fits the affectionate caresses in which he is -always indulging. Nothing, indeed, can be more charming than the playful -little prattle which occasionally interrupts the gossip and the sharp -utterances of hope or resentment. In the snatches of leisure, late at -night or before he has got up in the morning, he delights in an imaginary -chat; for a few minutes of little fondling talk help him to forget his -worries, and anticipate the happiness of reunion. He caresses her letters, -as he cannot touch her hand. "And now let us come and see what this saucy, -dear letter of MD says. Come out, letter, come out from between the -sheets; here it is underneath, and it will not come out. Come out again, I -says; so there. Here it is. What says Pdf to me, pray? says it. Come and -let me answer for you to your ladies. Hold up your head then like a good -letter." And so he begins a little talk, and prays that they may be never -separated again for ten days, whilst he lives. Then he follows their -movements in Dublin in passages which give some lively little pictures of -their old habits. "And where will you go to-day? for I cannot be with you -for the ladies." [He is off sight-seeing to the Tower and Bedlam with Lady -Kerry and a friend.] "It is a rainy, ugly day; I would have you send for -Wales, and go to the dean's; but do not play small games when you lose. -You will be ruined by Manilio, Basto, the queen, and two small trumps in -red. I confess it is a good hand against the player. But, then, there are -Spadilio, Punto, the king, strong trumps against you, which with one rump -more are three tricks ten ace; for suppose you play your Manilio--O, -silly, how I prate and cannot get away from MD in a morning. Go, get you -gone, dear naughty girls, and let me rise." He delights again in turning -to account his queer talent for making impromptu proverbs,-- - - Be you lords or be you earls, - You must write to naughty girls. - -Or again,-- - - Mr. White and Mr. Red - Write to M.D. when abed: - Mr. Black and Mr. Brown - Write to M.D. when you are down: - Mr. Oak and Mr. Willow - Write to M.D. on your pillow. - -And here is one more for the end of the year,-- - - Would you answer M.D.'s letter - On New Year's Day you will do it better: - For when the year with M.D. 'gins - It without M.D. never 'lins. - -"These proverbs," he explains, "have always old words in them; _lin_ is -leave off." - - But if on new year you write nones - M.D. then will bang your bones. - -Reading these fond triflings we feel even now as though we were -unjustifiably prying into the writer's confidence. What are we to say to -them? We might simply say that the tender playfulness is charming; and -that it is delightful to find the stern gladiator turning from -party-warfare to soothe his wearied soul with these tender caresses. There -is but one drawback. Macaulay imitates some of this prattle in his -charming letters to his younger sister, and there we can accept it -without difficulty. But Stella was not Swift's younger sister. She was a -beautiful and clever woman of thirty, when he was in the prime of his -powers at forty-four. If Tisdall could have seen the journal he would have -ceased to call Swift "unaccountable." Did all this caressing suggest -nothing to Stella? Swift does not write as an avowed lover; Dingley serves -as a chaperone even in these intimate confidences; and yet a word or two -escapes which certainly reads like something more than fraternal -affection. He apologizes (May 23, 1711) for not returning; "I will say no -more, but beg you to be easy till fortune takes her course, and to believe -that MD's felicity is the great goal I aim at in all my pursuits." If such -words addressed under such circumstances did not mean "I hope to make you -my wife as soon as I get a deanery," there must have been some distinct -understanding to limit their force. - -But another character enters the drama, Mrs. Vanhomrigh,[44] a widow rich -enough to mix in good society, was living in London with two sons and two -daughters, and made Swift's acquaintance in 1708. Her eldest daughter, -Hester, was then seventeen, or about ten years younger than Stella. When -Swift returned to London in 1710, he took lodgings close to the -Vanhomrighs, and became an intimate of the family. In the daily reports of -his dinner, the name Van occurs more frequently than any other. Dinner, -let us observe in passing, had not then so much as now the character of a -solemn religious rite, implying a formal invitation. The ordinary hour was -three (though Harley with his usual procrastination often failed to sit -down till six), and Swift, when not pre-engaged, looked in at Court or -elsewhere in search of an invitation. He seldom failed: and when nobody -else offered he frequently went to the "Vans." The name of the daughter is -only mentioned two or three times; whilst it is perhaps a suspicious -circumstance that he very often makes a quasi-apology for his -dining-place. "I was so lazy I dined where my new gown was, at Mrs. -Vanhomrigh's," he says, in May, 1711; and a day or two later explains that -he keeps his "best gown and periwig" there whilst he is lodging at -Chelsea, and often dines there "out of mere listlessness." The phrase may -not have been consciously insincere; but Swift was drifting into an -intimacy which Stella could hardly approve, and, if she desired Swift's -love, would regard as ominous. When Swift took possession of his deanery, -he revealed his depression to Miss Vanhomrigh, who about this time took -the title Vanessa; and Vanessa again received his confidences from -Letcombe. A full account of their relations is given in the remarkable -poem called _Cadenus and Vanessa_, less remarkable, indeed, as a poem than -as an autobiographical document. It is singularly characteristic of Swift -that we can use what, for want of a better classification, must be called -a love poem, as though it were an affidavit in a law-suit. Most men would -feel some awkwardness in hinting at sentiments conveyed by Swift in the -most downright terms; to turn them into a poem would seem preposterous. -Swift's poetry, however, is always plain matter of fact, and we may read -_Cadenus_ (which means of course _Decanus_) _and Vanessa_ as Swift's -deliberate and palpably sincere account of his own state of mind. Omitting -a superfluous framework of mythology in the contemporary taste, we have a -plain story of the relations of this new Heloïse and Abelard. Vanessa, he -tells us, united masculine accomplishments to feminine grace; the -fashionable fops (I use Swift's own words as much as possible) who tried -to entertain her with the tattle of the day, stared when she replied by -applications of Plutarch's morals; the ladies from the purlieus of St. -James's found her reading Montaigne at her toilet, and were amazed by her -ignorance of the fashions. Both were scandalized at the waste of such -charms and talents due to the want of so called knowledge of the world. -Meanwhile, Vanessa, not yet twenty, met and straightway admired Cadenus, -though his eyes were dim with study and his health decayed. He had grown -old in politics and wit; was caressed by ministers; dreaded and hated by -half mankind, and had forgotten the arts by which he had once charmed -ladies, though merely for amusement and to show his wit.[45] He did not -understand what was love; he behaved to Vanessa as a father might behave -to a daughter; - - That innocent delight he took - To see the virgin mind her book - Was but the master's secret joy - In school to hear the finest boy. - -Vanessa, once the quickest of learners, grew distracted. He apologized for -having bored her by his pedantry, and offered a last adieu. She then -startled him by a confession. He had taught her, she said, that virtue -should never be afraid of disclosures; that noble minds were above common -maxims (just what he had said to Varina), and she therefore told him -frankly that his lessons, aimed at her head, had reached her heart. -Cadenus was utterly taken aback. Her words were too plain to be in jest. -He was conscious of having never for a moment meant to be other than a -teacher. Yet every one would suspect him of intentions to win her heart -and her five thousand pounds. He tried not to take things seriously. -Vanessa, however, became eloquent. She said that he had taught her to love -great men through their books; why should she not love the living reality? -Cadenus was flattered and half converted. He had never heard her talk so -well, and admitted that she had a most unfailing judgment and discerning -head. He still maintained that his dignity and age put love out of the -question, but he offered in return as much friendship as she pleased. She -replies that she will now become tutor and teach him the lesson which he -is so slow to learn. But--and here the revelation ends-- - - But what success Vanessa met - Is to the world a secret yet.[46] - -Vanessa loved Swift; and Swift, it seems, allowed himself to be loved. One -phrase in a letter written to him during his stay at Dublin, in 1713, -suggests the only hint of jealousy. If you are happy, she says, "it is -ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent -with mine." Soon after Swift's final retirement to Ireland, Mrs. -Vanhomrigh died; her husband had left a small property at Celbridge. One -son was dead; the other behaved badly to his sisters; the daughters were -for a time in money difficulties, and it became convenient for them to -retire to Ireland, where Vanessa ultimately settled at Celbridge. The two -women who worshipped Swift were thus almost in presence of each other. The -situation almost suggests comedy; but unfortunately it was to take a most -tragical and still partly mysterious development. - -The fragmentary correspondence between Swift and Vanessa establishes -certain facts. Their intercourse was subject to restraints. He begs her, -when he is starting for Dublin, to get her letters directed by some other -hand, and to write nothing that may not be seen, for fear of -"inconveniences." The post-office clerk surely would not be more attracted -by Vanessa's hand than by that of such a man as Lewis, a subordinate of -Harley's who had formerly forwarded her letters. He adds that if she comes -to Ireland, he will see her very seldom. "It is not a place for freedom, -but everything is known in a week and magnified a hundred times." Poor -Vanessa soon finds the truth of this. She complains that she is amongst -"strange prying deceitful people;" that he flies her and will give no -reason except that they are amongst fools and must submit. His reproofs -are terrible to her. "If you continue to treat me as you do," she says -soon after, "you will not be made uneasy by me long." She would rather -have borne the rack than those "killing, killing words" of his. She writes -instead of speaking, because when she ventures to complain in person "you -are angry, and there is something in your look so awful that it shakes me -dumb"--a memorable phrase in days soon to come. She protests that she says -as little as she can. If he knew what she thought, he must be moved. The -letter containing these phrases is dated 1714, and there are but a few -scraps till 1720; we gather that Vanessa submitted partly to the -necessities of the situation: and that this extreme tension was often -relaxed. Yet she plainly could not resign herself or suppress her passion. -Two letters in 1720 are painfully vehement. He has not seen her for ten -long weeks, she says in her first, and she has only had one letter and one -little note with an excuse. She will sink under his "prodigious neglect." -Time or accident cannot lessen her inexpressible passion. "Put my passion -under the utmost restraint; send me as distant from you as the earth will -allow, yet you cannot banish those charming ideas which will stick by me, -whilst I have the use of memory. Nor is the love I bear you only seated in -my soul, for there is not a single atom of my frame that is not blended -with it." She thinks him changed, and entreats him not to suffer her to -"live a life like a languishing death, which is the only life I can lead, -if you have lost any of your tenderness for me." The following letter is -even more passionate. She passes days in sighing and nights in watching -and thinking of one who thinks not of her. She was born with "violent -passions, which terminate all in one, that inexpressible passion I have -for you." If she could guess at his thoughts, which is impossible ("for -never any one living thought like you") she would guess that he wishes her -"religious"--that she might pay her devotions to heaven. "But that should -not spare you, for was I an enthusiast, still you'd be the deity I should -worship." "What marks are there of a deity but what you are to be known -by--you are (at?) present everywhere; your dear image is always before my -eyes. Sometimes you strike me with that prodigious awe, I tremble with -fear; at other times a charming compassion shines through your -countenance, which moves my soul. Is it not more reasonable to adore a -radiant form one has seen, than one only described?"[47] - -The man who received such letters from a woman whom he at least admired -and esteemed, who felt that to respond was to administer poison, and to -fail to respond was to inflict the severest pangs, must have been in the -cruellest of dilemmas. Swift, we cannot doubt, was grieved and perplexed. -His letters imply embarrassment; and, for the most part, take a lighter -tone; he suggests his universal panacea of exercise; tells her to fly from -the spleen instead of courting it; to read diverting books, and so forth; -advice more judicious probably than comforting. There are, however, some -passages of a different tendency. There is a mutual understanding to use -certain catch-words, which recall the "little language." He wishes that -her letters were as hard to read as his, in case of accident. "A stroke -thus ... signifies everything that may be said to _Cad_, at the beginning -and conclusion." And she uses this written caress, and signs herself--his -own "Skinage." There are certain "questions," to which reference is -occasionally made; a kind of catechism, it seems, which he was expected to -address to himself at intervals, and the nature of which must be -conjectured. He proposes to continue the _Cadenus and Vanessa_--a proposal -which makes her happy beyond "expression,"--and delights her by recalling -a number of available incidents. He recurs to them in his last letter, and -bids her "go over the scenes of Windsor, Cleveland Row, Rider Street, St. -James's Street, Kensington, the Shrubbery, the Colonel in France, &c. Cad -thinks often of these, especially on horseback,[48] as I am assured." This -prosaic list of names recall, as we find, various old meetings. And, -finally, one letter contains an avowal of a singular kind. "Soyez -assurée," he says, after advising her "to quit this scoundrel island," -"que jamais personne du monde a été aimée, honorée, estimée, adorée par -votre ami que vous." It seems as though he were compelled to throw her -just a crumb of comfort here: but, in the same breath, he has begged her -to leave him for ever. - -If Vanessa was ready to accept a "gown of forty-four," to overlook his -infirmities in consideration of his fame, why should Swift have refused? -Why condemn her to undergo this "languishing death,"--a long agony of -unrequited passion? One answer is suggested by the report that Swift was -secretly married to Stella in 1716. The fact is not proved, nor -disproved:[49] nor, to my mind, is the question of its truth of much -importance. The ceremony, if performed, was nothing but a ceremony. The -only rational explanation of the fact, if it be taken for a fact, must be -that Swift, having resolved not to marry, gave Stella this security that -he would, at least, marry no one else. Though his anxiety to hide the -connexion with Vanessa may only mean a dread of idle tongues, it is at -least highly probable that Stella was the person from whom he specially -desired to keep it. Yet his poetical addresses to Stella upon her birthday -(of which the first is dated 1719, and the last 1727) are clearly not the -addresses of a lover. Both in form and substance they are even pointedly -intended to express friendship instead of love. They read like an -expansion of his avowal to Tisdall, that her charms for him, though for no -one else, could not be diminished by her growing old without marriage. He -addresses her with blunt affection, and tells her plainly of her growing -size and waning beauty; comments even upon her defects of temper, and -seems expressly to deny that he loved her in the usual way. - - Thou, Stella, wert no longer young - When first for thee my harp I strung, - Without one word of Cupid's darts - Of killing eyes and bleeding hearts; - With friendship and esteem possess'd - I ne'er admitted love a guest. - -We may almost say that he harps upon the theme of "friendship and esteem." -His gratitude for her care of him is pathetically expressed; he admires -her with the devotion of a brother for the kindest of sisters; his plain -prosaic lines become poetical, or perhaps something better; but there is -an absence of the lover's strain which is only not, if not, ostentatious. - -The connexion with Stella, whatever its nature, gives the most -intelligible explanation of his keeping Vanessa at a distance. A collision -between his two slaves might be disastrous. And, as the story goes (for we -are everywhere upon uncertain ground), it came. In 1721 poor Vanessa had -lost her only sister,[50] and companion: her brothers were already dead, -and, in her solitude, she would naturally be more than ever eager for -Swift's kindness. At last, in 1723, she wrote (it is said) a letter to -Stella, and asked whether she was Swift's wife.[51] Stella replied that -she was, and forwarded Vanessa's letter to Swift. How Swift could resent -an attempt to force his wishes, has been seen in the letter to Varina. He -rode in a fury to Celbridge. His countenance, says Orrery, could be -terribly expressive of the sterner passions. Prominent eyes--"azure as the -heavens" (says Pope)--arched by bushy black eyebrows, could glare, we can -believe from his portraits, with the green fury of a cat's. Vanessa had -spoken of the "something awful in his looks," and of his killing words. He -now entered her room, silent with rage, threw down her letter on the table -and rode off. He had struck Vanessa's death-blow. She died soon -afterwards, but lived long enough to revoke a will made in favour of -Swift, and leave her money between Judge Marshal and the famous Bishop -Berkeley. Berkeley, it seems, had only seen her once in his life. - -The story of the last fatal interview has been denied. Vanessa's death, -though she was under thirty-five, is less surprising when we remember that -her younger sister and both her brothers had died before her; and that her -health had always been weak, and her life for some time a languishing -death. That there was in any case a terribly tragic climax to the -half-written romance of _Cadenus and Vanessa_ is certain. Vanessa -requested that the poem and the letters might be published by her -executors. Berkeley suppressed the letters for the time; and they were not -published in full until Scott's edition of Swift's works. - -Whatever the facts, Swift had reasons enough for bitter regret if not for -deep remorse. He retired to hide his head in some unknown retreat; -absolute seclusion was the only solace to his gloomy, wounded spirit. -After two months he returned to resume his retired habits. A period -followed, as we shall see in the next chapter, of fierce political -excitement. For a time too he had a vague hope of escaping from his exile. -An astonishing literary success increased his reputation. But another -misfortune approached which crushed all hope of happiness in life. - -In 1726 Swift at last revisited England. He writes in July that he has for -two months been anxious about Stella's health, and as usual feared the -worst. He has seen through the disguises of a letter from Mrs. Dingley. -His heart is so sunk that he will never be the same man again, but drag on -a wretched life till it pleases God to call him away. Then in an agony of -distress he contemplates her death; he says that he could not bear to be -present; he should be a trouble to her, and the greatest torment to -himself. He forces himself to add that her death must not take place at -the deanery. He will not return to find her just dead or dying. "Nothing -but extremity could make me so familiar with those terrible words applied -to so dear a friend." "I think," he says in another letter, "that there is -not a greater folly than that of entering into too strict a partnership or -friendship with the loss of which a man must be absolutely miserable; but -especially [when the loss occurs] at an age when it is too late to engage -in a new friendship." The morbid feeling which could withhold a man from -attending a friend's deathbed, or allow him to regret the affection to -which his pain was due, is but too characteristic of Swift's egoistic -attachments. Yet we forgive the rash phrase, when we read his passionate -expressions of agony. Swift returned to Ireland in the autumn, and Stella -struggled through the winter. He was again in England in the following -summer; and for a time in better spirits. But once more the news comes -that Stella is probably on her deathbed; and he replies in letters which -we read as we listen to groans of a man in sorest agony. He keeps one -letter for an hour before daring to open it. He does not wish to live to -see the loss of the person for whose sake alone life was worth preserving. -"What have I to do in the world? I never was in such agonies as when I -received your letter, and had it in my pocket. I am able to hold up my -sorry head no longer." In another distracted letter, he repeats in Latin -the desire that Stella shall not die in the deanery, for fear of malignant -misinterpretations. If any marriage had taken place, the desire to conceal -it had become a rooted passion. - -Swift returned to Ireland to find Stella still living. It is said that in -the last period of her life Swift offered to make the marriage public, and -that she declined, saying that it was now too late.[52] She lingered till -January 28, 1728. He sat down the same night to write a few scattered -reminiscences. He breaks down; and writes again during the funeral, which -he is too ill to attend. The fragmentary notes give us the most authentic -account of Stella, and show, at least, what she appeared in the eyes of -her lifelong friend and protector. We may believe that she was intelligent -and charming; as we can be certain that Swift loved her in every sense but -one. A lock of her hair was preserved in an envelope in which he had -written one of those vivid phrases by which he still lives in our memory: -"_Only a woman's hair_." What does it mean? Our interpretation will depend -partly upon what we can see ourselves in a lock of hair. But I think that -any one who judges Swift fairly will read in those four words the most -intense utterance of tender affection, and of pathetic yearning for the -irrevocable past strangely blended with a bitterness springing not from -remorse, but indignation at the cruel tragi-comedy of life. The destinies -laugh at us whilst they torture us; they make cruel scourges of trifles, -and extract the bitterest passion from our best affections. - -Swift was left alone. Before we pass on we must briefly touch the problems -of this strange history. It was a natural guess that some mysterious cause -condemned Swift to his loneliness. A story is told by Scott (on poor -evidence) that Delany went to Archbishop King's library about the time of -the supposed marriage. As he entered Swift rushed out with a distracted -countenance. King was in tears, and said to Delany, "You have just met the -most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must -never ask a question." This has been connected with a guess made by -somebody that Swift had discovered Stella to be his natural sister. It can -be shown conclusively that this is impossible; and the story must be left -as picturesque but too hopelessly vague to gratify any inference whatever. -We know without it that Swift was unhappy; but we know nothing of any -definite cause. - -Another view is that there is no mystery. Swift, it is said, retained -through life the position of Stella's "guide, philosopher and friend," and -was never anything more. Stella's address to Swift (on his birthday, -1721), may be taken to confirm this theory. It says with a plainness like -his own that he had taught her to despise beauty and hold her empire by -virtue and sense. Yet the theory is in itself strange. The less love -entered into Swift's relations to Stella, the more difficult to explain -his behaviour to Vanessa. If he regarded Stella only as a daughter or a -younger sister, and she returned the same feeling, he had no reason for -making any mystery about the woman who would not in that case be a rival. -If, again, we accept this view, we naturally ask why Swift "never admitted -love a guest." He simply continued, it is suggested, to behave as teacher -to pupil. He thought of her when she was a woman as he had thought of her -when she was a child of eight years old. But it is singular that a man -should be able to preserve such a relation. It is quite true that a -connexion of this kind may blind a man to its probable consequences; but -it is contrary to ordinary experience that it should render the -consequences less probable. The relation might explain why Swift should be -off his guard; but could hardly act as a safeguard. An ordinary man who -was on such terms with a beautiful girl as are revealed in the _Journal to -Stella_ would have ended by falling in love with her. Why did not Swift? -We can only reply by remembering the "coldness" of temper to which he -refers in his first letter: and his assertion that he did not understand -love, and that his frequent flirtations never meant more than a desire for -distraction. The affair with Varina is an exception: but there are grounds -for holding that Swift was constitutionally indisposed to the passion of -love. The absence of any traces of such a passion from writings -conspicuous for their amazing sincerity, and (it is added) for their -freedoms of another kind, has been often noticed as a confirmation of this -hypothesis. Yet it must be said that Swift could be strictly reticent -about his strongest feelings--and was specially cautious, for whatever -reason, in regard to his relation with Stella.[53] - -If Swift constitutionally differed from other men, we have some -explanation of his strange conduct. But we must take into account other -circumstances. Swift had very obvious motives for not marrying. In the -first place, he gradually became almost a monomaniac upon the question of -money. His hatred of wasting a penny unnecessarily began at Trinity -College, and is prominent in all his letters and journals. It coloured -even his politics, for a conviction that the nation was hopelessly ruined -is one of his strongest prejudices. He kept accounts down to halfpence, -and rejoices at every saving of a shilling. The passion was not the -vulgar desire for wealth of the ordinary miser. It sprang from the -conviction stored up in all his aspirations that money meant independence. -"Wealth," he says, "is liberty; and liberty is a blessing fittest for a -philosopher--and Gay is a slave just by two thousand pounds too -little."[54] Gay was a duchess's lapdog: Swift, with all his troubles, at -least a free man. Like all Swift's prejudices, this became a fixed idea -which was always gathering strength. He did not love money for its own -sake. He was even magnificent in his generosity. He scorned to receive -money for his writings; he abandoned the profit to his printers in -compensation for the risks they ran, or gave it to his friends. His -charity was splendid relatively to his means. In later years he lived on a -third of his income, gave away a third, and saved the remaining third for -his posthumous charity,[55]--and posthumous charity which involves present -saving is charity of the most unquestionable kind. His principle was that -by reducing his expenditure to the lowest possible point, he secured his -independence and could then make a generous use of the remainder. Until he -had received his deanery, however, he could only make both ends meet. -Marriage would therefore have meant poverty, probably dependence, and the -complete sacrifice of his ambition. - -If under these circumstances Swift had become engaged to Stella upon -Temple's death, he would have been doing what was regularly done by -fellows of colleges under the old system. There is, however, no trace of -such an engagement. It would be in keeping with Swift's character, if we -should suppose that he shrank from the bondage of an engagement; that he -designed to marry Stella as soon as he should achieve a satisfactory -position, and meanwhile trusted to his influence over her, and thought -that he was doing her justice by leaving her at liberty to marry if she -chose. The close connexion must have been injurious to Stella's prospects -of a match; but it continued only by her choice. If this were in fact the -case, it is still easy to understand why Swift did not marry upon becoming -dean. He felt himself, I have said, to be a broken man. His prospects were -ruined, and his health precarious. This last fact requires to be -remembered in every estimate of Swift's character. His life was passed -under a Damocles' sword. He suffered from a distressing illness which he -attributed to an indigestion produced by an over-consumption of fruit at -Temple's when he was a little over twenty-one. The main symptoms were a -giddiness, which frequently attacked him, and was accompanied by deafness. -It is quite recently that the true nature of the complaint has been -identified. Dr. Bucknill[56] seems to prove that the symptoms are those of -"Labyrinthine vertigo," or Ménière's disease, so called because discovered -by Ménière in 1861. The references to his sufferings, brought together by -Sir William Wilde in 1849,[57] are frequent in all his writings. It -tormented him for days, weeks, and months, gradually becoming more -permanent in later years. In 1731 he tells Gay that his giddiness attacks -him constantly, though it is less violent than of old; and in 1736 he says -that it is continual. From a much earlier period it had alarmed and -distressed him. Some pathetic entries are given by Mr. Forster from one of -his note-books:--"Dec. 5 (1708).--Horribly sick. 12th.--Much better, -thank God and M.D.'s prayers.... April 2nd (1709).--Small giddy fit and -swimming in the head. M.D. and God help me.... July, 1710.--Terrible fit. -God knows what may be the event. Better towards the end." The terrible -anxiety, always in the background, must count for much in Swift's gloomy -despondency. Though he seems always to have spoken of the fruit as the -cause, he must have had misgivings as to the nature and result. Dr. -Bucknill tells us that it was not necessarily connected with the disease -of the brain, which ultimately came upon him; but he may well have thought -that this disorder of the head was prophetic of such an end. It was -probably in 1717 that he said to Young of the _Night Thoughts_, "I shall -be like that tree; I shall die at the top." A man haunted perpetually by -such forebodings might well think that marriage was not for him. In -_Cadenus and Vanessa_ he insists upon his declining years with an emphasis -which seems excessive even from a man of forty-four (in 1713 he was really -forty-five) to a girl of twenty. In a singular poem called the _Progress -of Marriage_ he treats the supposed case of a divine of fifty-two marrying -a lively girl of fashion, and speaks with his usual plainness of the -probable consequences of such folly. We cannot doubt that here as -elsewhere he is thinking of himself. He was fifty-two when receiving the -passionate love-letters of Vanessa; and the poem seems to be specially -significant. - -This is one of those cases in which we feel that even biographers are not -omniscient; and I must leave it to my readers to choose their own theory, -only suggesting that readers too are fallible. But we may still ask what -judgment is to be passed upon Swift's conduct. Both Stella and Vanessa -suffered from coming within the sphere of Swift's imperious attraction. -Stella enjoyed his friendship through her life at the cost of a partial -isolation from ordinary domestic happiness. She might and probably did -regard his friendship as a full equivalent for the sacrifice. It is one of -the cases in which, if the actors be our contemporaries, we hold that -outsiders are incompetent to form a judgment, as none but the principals -can really know the facts. Is it better to be the most intimate friend of -a man of genius or the wife of a commonplace Tisdall? If Stella chose, and -chose freely, it is hard to say that she was mistaken, or to blame Swift -for a fascination which he could not but exercise. The tragedy of Vanessa -suggests rather different reflections. Swift's duty was plain. Granting -what seems to be probable, that Vanessa's passion took him by surprise, -and that he thought himself disqualified for marriage by infirmity and -weariness of life, he should have made his decision perfectly plain. He -should have forbidden any clandestine relations. Furtive caresses--even on -paper, understandings to carry on a private correspondence, fond -references to old meetings, were obviously calculated to encourage her -passion. He should not only have pronounced it to be hopeless, but made -her, at whatever cost, recognize the hopelessness. This is where Swift's -strength seems to have failed him. He was not intentionally cruel; he -could not foresee the fatal event; he tried to put her aside, and he felt -the "shame, disappointment, grief, surprise," of which he speaks on the -avowal of her love. He gave her the most judicious advice, and tried to -persuade her to accept it. But he did not make it effectual. He shrank -from inflicting pain upon her and upon himself. He could not deprive -himself of the sympathy which soothed his gloomy melancholy. His affection -was never free from the egoistic element which prevented him from acting -unequivocally as an impartial spectator would have advised him to act, or -as he would have advised another to act in a similar case. And therefore -when the crisis came the very strength of his affection produced an -explosion of selfish wrath; and he escaped from the intolerable position -by striking down the woman whom he loved, and whose love for him had -become a burden. The wrath was not the less fatal because it was half -composed of remorse, and the energy of the explosion proportioned to the -strength of the feeling which had held it in check. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -WOOD'S HALFPENCE. - - -In one of Scott's finest novels, the old Cameronian preacher, who had been -left for dead by Claverhouse's troopers, suddenly rises to confront his -conquerors, and spends his last breath in denouncing the oppressors of the -saints. Even such an apparition was Jonathan Swift to comfortable Whigs -who were flourishing in the place of Harley and St. John, when, after ten -years' quiescence, he suddenly stepped into the political arena. After the -first crushing fall he had abandoned partial hope, and contented himself -with establishing supremacy in his chapter. But undying wrath smouldered -in his breast till time came for an outburst. - -No man had ever learnt more thoroughly the lesson, "put not your faith in -princes;" or had been impressed with a lower estimate of the wisdom -displayed by the rulers of the world. He had been behind the scenes, and -knew that the wisdom of great ministers meant just enough cunning to court -the ruin which a little common sense would have avoided. Corruption was at -the prow and folly at the helm. The selfish ring which he had denounced so -fiercely had triumphed. It had triumphed, as he held, by flattering the -new dynasty, hoodwinking the nation, and maligning its antagonists. The -cynical theory of politics was not for him, as for some comfortable -cynics, an abstract proposition, which mattered very little to a sensible -man; but was embodied in the bitter wrath with which he regarded his -triumphant adversaries. Pessimism is perfectly compatible with bland -enjoyment of the good things in a bad world; but Swift's pessimism was not -of this type. It meant energetic hatred of definite things and people who -were always before him. - -With this feeling, he had come to Ireland; and Ireland--I am speaking of a -century and a half ago--was the opprobrium of English statesmanship. There -Swift had (or thought he had) always before him a concrete example of the -basest form of tyranny. By Ireland, I have said, Swift meant, in the first -place, the English in Ireland. In the last years of his sanity he -protested indignantly against the confusion between the "savage old -Irish," and the English gentry who, he said, were much better bred, spoke -better English, and were more civilized than the inhabitants of many -English counties.[58] He retained to the end of his life his antipathy to -the Scotch colonists. He opposed their demand for political equality as -fiercely in the last as in his first political utterances. He contrasted -them unfavourably[59] with the Catholics, who had indeed been driven to -revolt by massacre and confiscation under Puritan rule, but who were now, -he declared, "true Whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word," -and thoroughly loyal to the house of Hanover. Had there been a danger of a -Catholic revolt, Swift's feelings might have been different; but he always -held, that they were "as inconsiderable as the women and children," mere -"hewers of wood and drawers of water," "out of all capacity of doing any -mischief, if they were ever so well inclined."[60] Looking at them in this -way, he felt a sincere compassion for their misery and a bitter resentment -against their oppressors. The English, he said, in a remarkable -letter,[61] should be ashamed of their reproaches of Irish dulness, -ignorance and cowardice. Those defects were the products of slavery. He -declared that the poor cottagers had "a much better natural taste for good -sense, humour and raillery, than ever I observed among people of the like -sort in England. But the millions of oppressions they lie under, the -tyranny of their landlords, the ridiculous zeal of their priests, and the -misery of the whole nation have been enough to damp the best spirits under -the sun." Such a view is now commonplace enough. It was then a heresy to -English statesmen, who thought that nobody but a Papist or a Jacobite -could object to the tyranny of Whigs. - -Swift's diagnosis of the chronic Irish disease was thoroughly political. -He considered that Irish misery sprang from the subjection to a government -not intentionally cruel, but absolutely selfish; to which the Irish -revenue meant so much convenient political plunder, and which acted on the -principle quoted from Cowley, that the happiness of Ireland should not -weigh against the "least conveniency" of England. He summed up his views -in a remarkable letter,[62] to be presently mentioned, the substance of -which had been orally communicated to Walpole. He said to Walpole, as he -said in every published utterance:--first, that the colonists were still -Englishmen and entitled to English rights; secondly, that their trade was -deliberately crushed, purely for the benefit of the English of England; -thirdly, that all valuable preferments were bestowed upon men born in -England, as a matter of course; and finally, that in consequence of this, -the upper classes, deprived of all other openings, were forced to -rack-rent their tenants to such a degree that not one farmer in the -kingdom out of a hundred "could afford shoes or stockings to his children, -or to eat flesh or drink anything better than sour milk and water twice in -a year: so that the whole country, except the Scotch plantation in the -north, is a scene of misery and desolation hardly to be matched on this -side Lapland." A modern reformer would give the first and chief place to -this social misery. It is characteristic that Swift comes to it as a -consequence from the injustice to his own class:--as, again, that he -appeals to Walpole not on the simple ground that the people are wretched, -but on the ground that they will be soon unable to pay the tribute to -England, which he reckons at a million a year. But his conclusion might be -accepted by any Irish patriot. Whatever, he says, can make a country poor -and despicable, concurs in the case of Ireland. The nation is controlled -by laws to which it does not consent; disowned by its brethren and -countrymen; refused the liberty of trading even in its natural -commodities; forced to seek for justice many hundred miles by sea and -land; rendered in a manner incapable of serving the king and country in -any place of honour, trust, or profit; whilst the governors have no -sympathy with the governed, except what may occasionally arise from the -sense of justice and philanthropy. - -I am not to ask how far Swift was right in his judgments. Every line which -he wrote shows that he was thoroughly sincere and profoundly stirred by -his convictions. A remarkable pamphlet, published in 1720, contained his -first utterance upon the subject. It is an exhortation to the Irish to use -only Irish manufactures. He applies to Ireland the fable of _Arachne and -Pallas_. The goddess, indignant at being equalled in spinning, turned her -rival into a spider, to spin for ever out of her own bowels in a narrow -compass. He always, he says, pitied poor Arachne for so cruel and unjust a -sentence, "which, however, is fully executed upon us by England with -further additions of rigour and severity; for the greatest part of our -bowels and vitals is extracted, without allowing us the liberty of -spinning and weaving them." Swift of course accepts the economic fallacy -equally taken for granted by his opponents, and fails to see that England -and Ireland injured themselves as well as each other by refusing to -interchange their productions. But he utters forcibly his righteous -indignation against the contemptuous injustice of the English rulers, in -consequence of which the "miserable people" are being reduced "to a worse -condition than the peasants in France, or the vassals in Germany and -Poland." Slaves, he says, have a natural disposition to be tyrants; and he -himself, when his betters give him a kick, is apt to revenge it with six -upon his footman. That is how the landlords treat their tenantry. - -The printer of this pamphlet was prosecuted. The chief justice (Whitshed) -sent back the jury nine times and kept them eleven hours before they would -consent to bring in a "special verdict." The unpopularity of the -prosecution became so great that it was at last dropped. Four years -afterwards a more violent agitation broke out. A patent had been given to -a certain William Wood for supplying Ireland with a copper coinage. Many -complaints had been made, and in September, 1723, addresses were voted by -the Irish Houses of Parliament, declaring that the patent had been -obtained by clandestine and false representations: that it was mischievous -to the country: and that Wood had been guilty of frauds in his coinage. -They were pacified by vague promises; but Walpole went on with the scheme -on the strength of a favourable report of a committee of the Privy -Council; and the excitement was already serious when (in 1724) Swift -published the _Drapier's Letters_, which give him his chief title to -eminence as a patriotic agitator. - -Swift either shared or took advantage of the general belief that the -mysteries of the currency are unfathomable to the human intelligence. They -have to do with that world of financial magic in which wealth may be made -out of paper, and all ordinary relations of cause and effect are -suspended. There is, however, no real mystery about the halfpence. The -small coins which do not form part of the legal tender may be considered -primarily as counters. A penny is a penny, so long as twelve are change -for a shilling. It is not in the least necessary for this purpose that the -copper contained in the twelve penny pieces should be worth or nearly -worth a shilling. A sovereign can never be worth much more than the gold -of which it is made. But at the present day bronze worth only twopence is -coined into twelve penny pieces.[63] The coined bronze is worth six times -as much as the uncoined. The small coins must have some intrinsic value to -deter forgery, and must be made of good materials to stand wear and tear. -If these conditions be observed, and a proper number be issued, the value -of the penny will be no more affected by the value of the copper than the -value of the banknote by that of the paper on which it is written. This -opinion assumes that the copper coins cannot be offered or demanded in -payment of any but trifling debts. The halfpence coined by Wood seem to -have fulfilled these conditions, and as copper worth twopence (on the -lowest computation) was coined into ten halfpence, worth fivepence, their -intrinsic value was more than double that of modern halfpence. - -The halfpence, then, were not objectionable upon this ground. Nay, it -would have been wasteful to make them more valuable. It would have been as -foolish to use more copper for the pence as to make the works of a watch -of gold if brass is equally durable and convenient. But another -consequence is equally clear. The effect of Wood's patent was that a mass -of copper worth about 60,000_l._,[64] became worth 100,800_l._ in the -shape of halfpenny pieces. There was therefore a balance of about -40,000_l._ to pay for the expenses of coinage. It would have been waste to -get rid of this by putting more copper in the coins; but if so large a -profit arose from the transaction, it would go to somebody. At the present -day it would be brought into the national treasury. This was not the way -in which business was done in Ireland. Wood was to pay 1000_l._ a year for -fourteen years to the Crown.[65] But 14,000_l._ still leaves a large -margin for profit. What was to become of it? According to the admiring -biographer of Sir R. Walpole, the patent had been originally given by -Lord Sunderland to the Duchess of Kendal, a lady whom the king delighted -to honour. She already received 3000_l._ a year in pensions upon the Irish -establishment, and she sold this patent to Wood for 10,000_l._ Enough was -still left to give Wood a handsome profit; as in transactions of this -kind, every accomplice in a dirty business expects to be well paid. So -handsome, indeed, was the profit that Wood received ultimately a pension -of 3000_l._ for eight years, 24,000_l._, that is, in consideration of -abandoning the patent. It was right and proper that a profit should be -made on the transaction, but shameful that it should be divided between -the king's mistress and William Wood, and that the bargain should be -struck without consulting the Irish representatives, and maintained in -spite of their protests. The Duchess of Kendal was to be allowed to take a -share of the wretched halfpence in the pocket of every Irish beggar. A -more disgraceful transaction could hardly be imagined, or one more -calculated to justify Swift's view of the selfishness and corruption of -the English rulers. - -Swift saw his chance, and went to work in characteristic fashion, with -unscrupulous audacity of statement, guided by the keenest strategical -instinct. He struck at the heart as vigorously as he had done in the -_Examiner_, but with resentment sharpened by ten years of exile. It was -not safe to speak of the Duchess of Kendal's share in the transaction, -though the story, as poor Archdeacon Coxe pathetically declares, was -industriously propagated. But the case against Wood was all the stronger. -Is he so wicked, asks Swift, as to suppose that a nation is to be ruined -that he may gain three or fourscore thousand pounds? Hampden went to -prison, he says, rather than pay a few shillings wrongfully; I, says -Swift, would rather be hanged than have all my "property taxed at -seventeen shillings in the pound at the arbitrary will and pleasure of the -venerable Mr. Wood." A simple constitutional precedent might rouse a -Hampden; but to stir a popular agitation, it is as well to show that the -evil actually inflicted is gigantic, independently of possible results. It -requires, indeed, some audacity to prove that debasement of the copper -currency can amount to a tax of seventeen shillings in the pound on all -property. Here, however, Swift might simply throw the reins upon the neck -of his fancy. Anybody may make any inferences he pleases in the mysterious -regions of currency; and no inferences, it seems, were too audacious for -his hearers, though we are left to doubt how far Swift's wrath had -generated delusions in his own mind, and how far he perceived that other -minds were ready to be deluded. He revels in prophesying the most -extravagant consequences. The country will be undone; the tenants will not -be able to pay their rents; "the farmers must rob, or beg, or leave the -country; the shopkeepers in this and every other town must break or -starve; the squire will hoard up all his good money to send to England and -keep some poor tailor or weaver in his house, who will be glad to get -bread at any rate."[66] Concrete facts are given to help the imagination. -Squire Conolly must have 250 horses to bring his half-yearly rents to -town; and the poor man will have to pay thirty-six of Wood's halfpence to -get a quart of twopenny ale. - -How is this proved? One argument is a sufficient specimen. Nobody, -according to the patent, was to be forced to take Wood's halfpence; nor -could any one be obliged to receive more than fivepence halfpenny in any -one payment. This, of course, meant that the halfpence could only be used -as change, and a man must pay his debts in silver or gold whenever it was -possible to use a sixpence. It upsets Swift's statement about Squire -Connolly's rents. But Swift is equal to the emergency. The rule means, he -says, that every man must take fivepence halfpenny in every payment, _if -it be offered_; which, on the next page, becomes simply in every payment; -therefore making an easy assumption or two, he reckons that you will -receive 160_l._ a year in these halfpence; and therefore (by other -assumptions) lose 140_l._ a year.[67] It might have occurred to Swift, one -would think, that both parties to the transaction could not possibly be -losers. But he calmly assumes that the man who pays will lose in -proportion to the increased number of coins; and the man who receives, in -proportion to the depreciated value of each coin. He does not see, or -think it worth notice, that the two losses obviously counterbalance each -other; and he has an easy road to prophesying absolute ruin for everybody. -It would be almost as great a compliment to call this sophistry, as to -dignify with the name of satire a round assertion that an honest man is a -cheat or a rogue. - -The real grievance, however, shows through the sham argument. "It is no -loss of honour," thought Swift, "to submit to the lion; but who, with the -figure of a man, can think with patience of being devoured alive by a -rat?" Why should Wood have this profit (even if more reasonably estimated) -in defiance of the wishes of the nation? It is, says Swift, because he is -an Englishman and has great friends. He proposes to meet the attempt by a -general agreement not to take the halfpence. Briefly, the halfpence were -to be "Boycotted." - -Before this second letter was written the English ministers had become -alarmed. A Report of the Privy Council (July 24, 1724) defended the -patent, but ended by recommending that the amount to be coined should be -reduced to 40,000_l._ Carteret was sent out as Lord Lieutenant to get this -compromise accepted. Swift replied by a third letter, arguing the question -of the patent, which he can "never suppose," or in other words, which -everybody knew, to have been granted as a "job for the interest of some -particular person." He vigorously asserts that the patent can never make -it obligatory to accept the halfpence, and tells a story much to the -purpose from old Leicester experience. The justices had reduced the price -of ale to three-halfpence a quart. One of them therefore requested that -they would make another order to appoint who should drink it, "for by -God," said he, "I will not." - -The argument thus naturally led to a further and more important question. -The discussion as to the patent brought forward the question of right. -Wood and his friends, according to Swift, had begun to declare that the -resistance meant Jacobitism and rebellion; they asserted that the Irish -were ready to shake off their dependence upon the crown of England. Swift -took up the challenge and answered resolutely and eloquently. He took up -the broadest ground. Ireland, he declared, depended upon England in no -other sense than that in which England depended upon Ireland. Whoever -thinks otherwise, he said, "I, M. B. despair, desire to be excepted; for I -declare, next under God, I depend only on the king my sovereign, and the -laws of my own country. I am so far," he added, "from depending upon the -people of England, that if they should rebel, I would take arms and lose -every drop of my blood, to hinder the Pretender from being king of -Ireland." - -It had been reported that somebody (Walpole presumably) had sworn to -thrust the halfpence down the throats of the Irish. The remedy, replied -Swift, is totally in your own hands, "and therefore I have digressed a -little ... to let you see that by the laws of God, of Nature, of Nations, -and of your own country, you are and ought to be as free a people as your -brethren in England." As Swift had already said in the third letter, no -one could believe that any English patent would stand half an hour after -an address from the English houses of Parliament such as that which had -been passed against Wood's by the Irish Parliament. Whatever -constitutional doubts might be raised, it was therefore come to be the -plain question whether or not the English ministers should simply override -the wishes of the Irish nation. - -Carteret, upon landing, began by trying to suppress his adversary. A -reward of 300_l._ was offered for the discovery of the author of the -fourth letter. A prosecution was ordered against the printer. Swift went -to the levée of the Lord Lieutenant, and reproached him bitterly for his -severity against a poor tradesman who had published papers for the good of -his country. Carteret answered in a happy quotation from Virgil, a feat -which always seems to have brought consolation to the statesman of that -day. - - Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt - Moliri. - -Another story is more characteristic. Swift's butler had acted as his -amanuensis, and absented himself one night whilst the proclamation was -running. Swift thought that the butler was either treacherous or presuming -upon his knowledge of the secret. As soon as the man returned he ordered -him to strip off his livery and begone. "I am in your power," he said, -"and for that very reason I will not stand your insolence." The poor -butler departed, but preserved his fidelity; and Swift, when the tempest -had blown over, rewarded him by appointing him verger in the cathedral. -The grand jury threw out the bill against the printer in spite of all -Whitshed's efforts; they were discharged; and the next grand jury -presented Wood's halfpence as a nuisance. Carteret gave way, the patent -was surrendered, and Swift might congratulate himself upon a complete -victory. - -The conclusion is in one respect rather absurd. The Irish succeeded in -rejecting a real benefit at the cost of paying Wood the profit which he -would have made, had he been allowed to confer it. Another point must be -admitted. Swift's audacious misstatements were successful for the time in -rousing the spirit of the people. They have led, however, to a very -erroneous estimate of the whole case. English statesmen and historians[68] -have found it so easy to expose his errors that they have thought his -whole case absurd. The grievance was not what it was represented, -therefore it is argued that there was no grievance. The very essence of -the case was that the Irish people were to be plundered by the German -mistress; and such plunder was possible because the English people, as -Swift says, never thought of Ireland except when there was nothing else -to be talked of in the coffee-houses.[69] Owing to the conditions of the -controversy, this grievance only came out gradually, and could never be -fully stated. Swift could never do more than hint at the transaction. His -letters (including three which appeared after the last mentioned, -enforcing the same case) have often been cited as models of eloquence, and -compared to Demosthenes. We must make some deduction from this, as in the -case of his former political pamphlets. The intensity of his absorption in -the immediate end, deprives them of some literary merits; and we, to whom -the sophistries are palpable enough, are apt to resent them. Anybody can -be effective in a way, if he chooses to lie boldly. Yet, in another sense, -it is hard to over-praise the letters. They have in a high degree the -peculiar stamp of Swift's genius; the vein of the most nervous -common-sense and pithy assertion with an undercurrent of intense passion, -the more impressive because it is never allowed to exhale in mere -rhetoric. - -Swift's success, the dauntless front which he had shown to the oppressor, -made him the idol of his countrymen. A drapier's club was formed in his -honour, which collected the letters and drank toasts and sang songs to -celebrate their hero. In a sad letter to Pope, in 1737, he complains that -none of his equals care for him; but adds that as he walks the streets he -has "a thousand hats and blessings upon old scores which those we call the -gentry have forgot." The people received him as their champion. When he -returned from England in 1726, bells were rung, bonfires lighted and a -guard of honour escorted him to the deanery. Towns voted him their -freedom and received him like a prince. When Walpole spoke of arresting -him, a prudent friend told the minister that the messenger would require a -guard of 10,000 soldiers. Corporations asked his advice in elections, and -the weavers appealed to him on questions about their trade. In one of his -satires,[70] Swift had attacked a certain Serjeant Bettesworth-- - - Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth - Though half-a-crown o'erpays his sweat's worth. - -Bettesworth called upon him with, as Swift reports, a knife in his pocket, -and complained in such terms as to imply some intention of personal -violence. The neighbours instantly sent a deputation to the dean, -proposing to take vengeance upon Bettesworth, and though he induced them -to disperse peaceably, they formed a guard to watch the house; and -Bettesworth complained that his attack upon the dean had lowered his -professional income by 1200_l._ a year. A quaint example of his popularity -is given by Sheridan. A great crowd had collected to see an eclipse. Swift -thereupon sent out the bellman to give notice that the eclipse had been -postponed by the dean's orders; and the crowd dispersed. - -Influence with the people, however, could not bring Swift back to power. -At one time there seemed to be a gleam of hope. Swift visited England -twice in 1726 and 1727. He paid long visits to his old friend Pope, and -again met Bolingbroke, now returned from exile, and trying to make a place -in English politics. Peterborough introduced the dean to Walpole, to whom -Swift detailed his views upon Irish politics. Walpole was the last man to -set about a great reform from mere considerations of justice and -philanthropy, and was not likely to trust a confidant of Bolingbroke. He -was civil but indifferent. Swift, however, was introduced by his friends -to Mrs. Howard, the mistress of the Prince of Wales, soon to become George -II. The princess, afterwards Queen Caroline, ordered Swift to come and see -her, and he complied, as he says, after nine commands. He told her that -she had lately seen a wild boy from Germany, and now he supposed she -wanted to see a wild dean from Ireland. Some civilities passed; Swift -offered some plaids of Irish manufacture, and the princess promised some -medals in return. When, in the next year, George I. died, the Opposition -hoped great things from the change. Pulteney had tried to get Swift's -powerful help for the _Craftsman_, the Opposition organ; and the -Opposition hoped to upset Walpole. Swift, who had thought of going to -France for his health, asked Mrs. Howard's advice. She recommended him to -stay; and he took the recommendation as amounting to a promise of support. -He had some hopes of obtaining English preferment in exchange for his -deanery in what he calls (in the date to one of his letters[71]) "wretched -Dublin in miserable Ireland." It soon appeared, however, that the mistress -was powerless; and that Walpole was to be as firm as ever in his seat. -Swift returned to Ireland, never again to leave it: to lose soon -afterwards his beloved Stella, and nurse an additional grudge against -courts and favourites. - -The bitterness with which he resented Mrs. Howard's supposed faithlessness -is painfully illustrative in truth of the morbid state of mind which was -growing upon him. "You think," he says to Bolingbroke in 1729, "as I -ought to think, that it is time for me to have done with the world; and so -I would, if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, -and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." That terrible -phrase expresses but too vividly the state of mind which was now becoming -familiar to him. Separated by death and absence from his best friends, and -tormented by increasing illness, he looked out upon a state of things in -which he could see no ground for hope. The resistance to Wood's halfpence -had staved off immediate ruin; but had not cured the fundamental evil. -Some tracts upon Irish affairs, written after the Drapier's Letters, -sufficiently indicate his despairing vein. "I am," he says in 1737, when -proposing some remedy for the swarms of beggars in Dublin, "a desponder by -nature," and he has found out that the people will never stir themselves -to remove a single grievance. His old prejudices were as keen as ever, and -could dictate personal outbursts. He attacked the bishops bitterly for -offering certain measures which in his view sacrificed the permanent -interests of the Church to that of the actual occupants. He showed his own -sincerity by refusing to take fines for leases which would have benefited -himself at the expense of his successors. With equal earnestness he still -clung to the Test Acts, and assailed the Protestant dissenters with all -his old bitterness, and ridiculed their claims to brotherhood with -Churchmen. To the end he was a Churchman before everything. One of the -last of his poetical performances was prompted by the sanction given by -the Irish Parliament to an opposition to certain "titles of ejectment." He -had defended the right of the Irish Parliament against English rulers; but -when it attacked the interests of his Church his fury showed itself in -the most savage satire that he ever wrote, the _Legion Club_. It is an -explosion of wrath tinged with madness. - - Could I from the building's top - Hear the rattling thunder drop, - While the devil upon the roof - (If the devil be thunder-proof) - Should with poker fiery red - Crack the stones and melt the lead, - Drive them down on every skull - When the den of thieves is full; - Quite destroy the harpies' nest, - How might this our isle be blest! - -What follows fully keeps up to this level. Swift flings filth like a -maniac, plunges into ferocious personalities, and ends fitly with the -execration,-- - - May their God, the devil, confound them. - -He was seized with one of his fits whilst writing the poem and was never -afterwards capable of sustained composition. - -Some further pamphlets--especially one on the State of Ireland--repeat and -enforce his views. One of them requires special mention. The _Modest -Proposal_ (written in 1729) _for Preventing the Children of Poor People in -Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country_--the proposal -being that they should be turned into articles of food--gives the very -essence of Swift's feeling, and is one of the most tremendous pieces of -satire in existence. It shows the quality already noticed. Swift is -burning with a passion, the glow of which makes other passions look cold, -as it is said that some bright lights cause other illuminating objects to -cast a shadow. Yet his face is absolutely grave, and he details his plan -as calmly as a modern projector suggesting the importation of Australian -meat. The superficial coolness may be revolting to tender-hearted people, -and has indeed led to condemnation of the supposed ferocity of the author -almost as surprising as the criticisms which can see in it nothing but an -exquisite piece of humour. It is, in truth, fearful to read even now. Yet -we can forgive and even sympathize when we take it for what it really -is--the most complete expression of burning indignation against -intolerable wrongs. It utters, indeed, a serious conviction. "I confess -myself," says Swift in a remarkable paper,[72] "to be touched with a very -sensible pleasure when I hear of a mortality in any country parish or -village, where the wretches are forced to pay for a filthy cabin and two -ridges of potatoes treble the worth; brought up to steal and beg for want -of work; to whom death would be the best thing to be wished for, on -account both of themselves and the public." He remarks in the same place -on the lamentable contradiction presented in Ireland to the maxim that the -"people are the riches of a nation," and the _Modest Proposal_ is the -fullest comment on this melancholy reflection. After many visionary -proposals, he has at last hit upon the plan, which has at least the -advantage that by adopting it "we can incur no danger of disobliging -England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh -being of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance in salt, -although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up a -whole nation without it." - -Swift once asked Delany[73] whether the "corruptions and villanies of men -in power did not eat his flesh and exhaust his spirits?" "No," said -Delany. "Why, how can you help it?" said Swift. "Because," replied -Delany, "I am commanded to the contrary--_fret not thyself because of the -ungodly_." That, like other wise maxims, is capable of an ambiguous -application. As Delany took it, Swift might perhaps have replied that it -was a very comfortable maxim--for the ungodly. His own application of -Scripture is different. It tells us, he says, in his proposal for using -Irish manufactures, that "oppression makes a wise man mad." If, therefore, -some men are not mad, it must be because they are not wise. In truth, it -is characteristic of Swift that he could never learn the great lesson of -submission even to the inevitable. He could not, like an easy-going -Delany, submit to oppression which might possibly be resisted with -success; but as little could he submit when all resistance was hopeless. -His rage, which could find no better outlet, burnt inwardly and drove him -mad. It is very interesting to compare Swift's wrathful denunciations with -Berkeley's treatment of the same before in the _Querist_ (1735-7). -Berkeley is full of luminous suggestions upon economical questions which -are entirely beyond Swift's mark. He is in a region quite above the -sophistries of the _Drapier's Letters_. He sees equally the terrible -grievance that no people in the world is so beggarly, wretched, and -destitute as the common Irish. But he thinks all complaints against the -English rule useless and therefore foolish. If the English restrain our -trade ill-advisedly, is it not, he asks, plainly our interest to -accommodate ourselves to them (No. 136)? Have we not the advantage of -English protection without sharing English responsibilities? He asks, -"whether England doth not really love us and wish well to us as bone of -her bone and flesh of her flesh? and whether it be not our part to -cultivate this love and affection all manner of ways?" (Nos. 322, 323.) -One can fancy how Swift must have received this characteristic suggestion -of the admirable Berkeley, who could not bring himself to think ill of any -one. Berkeley's main contention is no doubt sound in itself, namely, that -the welfare of the country really depended on the industry and economy of -its inhabitants, and that such qualities would have made the Irish -comfortable in spite of all English restrictions and Government abuses. -But, then, Swift might well have answered that such general maxims are -idle. It is all very well for divines to tell people to become good and to -find out that then they will be happy. But how are they to be made good? -Are the Irish intrinsically worse than other men, or is their laziness and -restlessness due to special and removable circumstances? In the latter -case is there not more real value in attacking tangible evils than in -propounding general maxims and calling upon all men to submit to -oppression, and even to believe in the oppressor's good-will in the name -of Christian charity? To answer those questions would be to plunge into -interminable and hopeless controversies. Meanwhile Swift's fierce -indignation against English oppression might almost as well have been -directed against a law of nature for any immediate result. Whether the -rousing of the national spirit was any benefit is a question which I must -leave to others. In any case, the work, however darkened by personal -feeling or love of class-privilege, expressed as hearty a hatred of -oppression as ever animated a human being. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. - - -The winter of 1713-14 passed by Swift in England was full of anxiety and -vexation. He found time, however, to join in a remarkable literary -association. The so-called Scriblerus Club does not appear, indeed, to -have had any definite organization. The rising young wits, Pope and Gay, -both of them born in 1688, were already becoming famous, and were taken up -by Swift, still in the zenith of his political power. Parnell, a few years -their senior, had been introduced by Swift to Oxford as a convert from -Whiggism. All three became intimate with Swift and Arbuthnot, the most -learned and amiable of the whole circle of Swift's friends. Swift declared -him to have every quality that could make a man amiable and useful with -but one defect--he had "a sort of slouch in his walk;" he was loved and -respected by every one, and was one of the most distinguished of the -Brothers. Swift and Arbuthnot and their three juniors discussed literary -plans in the midst of the growing political excitement. Even Oxford used, -as Pope tells us, to amuse himself during the very crisis of his fate by -scribbling verses and talking nonsense with the members of this informal -Club, and some doggerel lines exchanged with him remain as a specimen--a -poor one it is to be hoped--of their intercourse. The familiarity thus -begun continued through the life of the members. Swift can have seen very -little of Pope. He hardly made his acquaintance till the latter part of -1713; they parted in the summer of 1714; and never met again except in -Swift's two visits to England in 1726-27. Yet their correspondence shows -an affection which was no doubt heightened by the consciousness of each -that the friendship of his most famous contemporary author was creditable; -but which, upon Swift's side at least, was thoroughly sincere and cordial, -and strengthened with advancing years. - -The final cause of the Club was supposed to be the composition of a -joint-stock satire. We learn from an interesting letter[74] that Pope -formed the original design; though Swift thought that Arbuthnot was the -only one capable of carrying it out. The scheme was to write the memoirs -of an imaginary pedant, who had dabbled with equal wrong-headedness in all -kinds of knowledge; and thus recalls Swift's early performances--the -_Battle of the Books_ and the _Tale of a Tub_. Arbuthnot begs Swift to -work upon it during his melancholy retirement at Letcombe. Swift had other -things to occupy his mind; and upon the dispersion of the party the Club -fell into abeyance. Fragments of the original plan were carried out by -Pope and Arbuthnot, and form part of the _Miscellanies_, to which Swift -contributed a number of poetical scraps, published under Pope's direction -in 1726-27. It seems probable that _Gulliver_ originated in Swift's mind -in the course of his meditations upon Scriblerus. The composition of -_Gulliver_ was one of the occupations by which he amused himself after -recovering from the great shock of his "exile." He worked, as he seems -always to have done, slowly and intermittently. Part of Brobdingnag at -least, as we learn from a letter of Vanessa's, was in existence by 1722. -Swift brought the whole manuscript to England in 1726, and it was -published anonymously in the following winter. The success was -instantaneous and overwhelming. "I will make over all my profits" (in a -work then being published) "to you," writes Arbuthnot, "for the property -of _Gulliver's Travels_, which, I believe, will have as great a run as -John Bunyan." The anticipation was amply fulfilled. _Gulliver's Travels_ -is one of the very few books some knowledge of which may be fairly assumed -in any one who reads anything. Yet something must be said of the secret of -the astonishing success of this unique performance. - -One remark is obvious. _Gulliver's Travels_ (omitting certain passages) is -almost the most delightful children's book ever written. Yet it has been -equally valued as an unrivalled satire. Old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, -was "in raptures with it," says Gay, "and can dream of nothing else." She -forgives his bitter attacks upon her party in consideration of his assault -upon human nature. He gives, she declares, "the most accurate" (that is, -of course, the most scornful) "account of kings, ministers, bishops, and -courts of justice, that is possible to be writ." Another curious testimony -may be noticed. Godwin, when tracing all evils to the baneful effects of -government, declares that the author of _Gulliver_ showed a "more profound -insight into the true principles of political justice than any preceding -or contemporary author." The playful form was unfortunate, thinks this -grave philosopher, as blinding mankind to the "inestimable wisdom" of the -work. This double triumph is remarkable. We may not share the opinions of -the cynics of the day, or of the revolutionists of a later generation; but -it is strange that they should be fascinated by a work which is studied -with delight, without the faintest suspicion of any ulterior meaning, by -the infantile mind. - -The charm of Gulliver for the young depends upon an obvious quality, which -is indicated in Swift's report of the criticism by an Irish bishop, who -said that "the book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he -hardly believed a word of it." There is something pleasant in the intense -gravity of the narrative, which recalls and may have been partly suggested -by _Robinson Crusoe_, though it came naturally to Swift. I have already -spoken of his delight in mystification, and the detailed realization of -pure fiction seems to have been delightful in itself. The Partridge -pamphlets and its various practical jokes are illustrations of a tendency -which fell in with the spirit of the time, and of which _Gulliver_ may be -regarded as the highest manifestation. Swift's peculiarity is in the -curious sobriety of fancy, which leads him to keep in his most daring -flights upon the confines of the possible. In the imaginary travels of -Lucian and Rabelais, to which _Gulliver_ is generally compared, we frankly -take leave of the real world altogether. We are treated with arbitrary and -monstrous combinations which may be amusing, but which do not challenge -even a semblance of belief. In _Gulliver_ this is so little the case that -it can hardly be said in strictness that the fundamental assumptions are -even impossible. Why should there not be creatures in human form with whom -as in Lilliput, one of our inches represents a foot, or, as in -Brobdingnag, one of our feet represents an inch? The assumption is so -modest that we are presented--it may be said--with a definite and soluble -problem. We have not, as in other fictitious worlds, to deal with a state -of things in which the imagination is bewildered, but with one in which it -is agreeably stimulated. We have certainly to consider an extreme and -exceptional case; but one to which all the ordinary laws of human nature -are still strictly applicable. In Voltaire's trifle, _Micromegas_, we are -presented to beings eight leagues in height and endowed with seventy-two -senses. For Voltaire's purpose the stupendous exaggeration is necessary; -for he wishes to insist upon the minuteness of human capacities. But the -assumption of course disqualifies us from taking any intelligent interest -in a region where no precedent is available for our guidance. We are in -the air; anything and everything is possible. But Swift modestly varies -only one element in the problem. Imagine giants and dwarfs as tall as a -house or as low as a footstool, and let us see what comes of it. That is a -plain, almost a mathematical problem; and we can therefore judge his -success, and receive pleasure from the ingenuity and verisimilitude of his -creations. - -"When you have once thought of big men and little men," said Johnson, -perversely enough, "it is easy to do the rest." The first step might -perhaps seem in this case to be the easiest; yet nobody ever thought of it -before Swift; and nobody has ever had similar good fortune since. There is -no other fictitious world the denizens of which have become so real for -us, and which has supplied so many images familiar to every educated mind. -But the apparent ease is due to the extreme consistency and sound judgment -of Swift's realization. The conclusions follow so inevitably from the -primary data that when they are once drawn we agree that they could not -have been otherwise; and infer, rashly, that anybody else could have -drawn them. It is as easy as lying; but everybody who has seriously tried -the experiment knows that even lying is by no means so easy as it appears -at first sight. In fact, Swift's success is something unique. The charming -plausibility of every incident, throughout the two first parts, commends -itself to children, who enjoy definite concrete images, and are fascinated -by a world which is at once full of marvels, surpassing Jack the Giant -Killer and the wonders seen by Sinbad, and yet as obviously and undeniably -true as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe himself. Nobody who has read the -book can ever forget it; and we may add that besides the childlike -pleasure which arises from a distinct realization of a strange world of -fancy, the two first books are sufficiently good-humoured. Swift seems to -be amused as well as amusing. They were probably written during the least -intolerable part of his exile. The period of composition includes the -years of the Vanessa tragedy and of the war of Wood's halfpence; it was -finished when Stella's illness was becoming constantly more threatening, -and published little more than a year before her death. The last books -show Swift's most savage temper; but we may hope that in spite of disease, -disappointments, and a growing alienation from mankind, Swift could still -enjoy an occasional piece of spontaneous, unadulterated fun. He could -still forget his cares, and throw the reins on the neck of his fancy. At -times there is a certain charm even in the characters. Every one has a -liking for the giant maid of all work, Glumdalelitch, whose affection for -her plaything is a quaint inversion of the ordinary relations between -Swift and his feminine adorers. The grave, stern, irascible man can relax -after a sort, though his strange idiosyncrasy comes out as distinctly in -his relaxation as in his passions. - -I will not dwell upon this aspect of _Gulliver_, which is obvious to every -one. There is another question which we are forced to ask, and which is -not very easy to answer. What does _Gulliver_ mean? It is clearly a -satire--but who and what are its objects? Swift states his own view very -unequivocally. "I heartily hate and detest that animal called man," he -says,[75] "although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth." He -declares that man is not an _animal rationale_, but only _rationis capax_: -and he then adds, "Upon this great foundation of misanthropy ... the whole -building of my travels is erected." "If the world had but a dozen -Arbuthnots in it," he says in the same letter, "I would burn my travels." -He indulges in a similar reflection to Sheridan.[76] "Expect no more from -man," he says, "than such an animal is capable of, and you will every day -find my description of Yahoos more resembling. You should think and deal -with every man as a villain, without calling him so, or flying from him or -valuing him less. This is an old true lesson." In spite of these avowals, -of a kind which, in Swift, must not be taken too literally, we find it -rather hard to admit that the essence of _Gulliver_ can be an expression -of this doctrine. The tone becomes morose and sombre, and even ferocious; -but it has been disputed whether in any case it can be regarded simply as -an utterance of misanthropy. - -_Gulliver's Travels_ belongs to a literary genus full of grotesque and -anomalous forms. Its form is derived from some of the imaginary travels of -which Lucian's _True History_--itself a burlesque of some early -travellers' tales--is the first example. But it has an affinity also to -such books as Bacon's _Atlantis_, and More's _Utopia_; and, again, to -later philosophical romances like _Candide_ and _Rasselas_; and not least, -perhaps, to the ancient fables, such as _Reynard the Fox_, to which Swift -refers in the _Tale of a Tub_. It may be compared, again, to the -_Pilgrim's Progress_, and the whole family of allegories. The full-blown -allegory resembles the game of chess said to have been played by some -ancient monarch, in which the pieces were replaced by real human beings. -The movements of the actors were not determined by the passions proper to -their character, but by the external set of rules imposed upon them by the -game. The allegory is a kind of picture-writing, popular, like -picture-writing at a certain stage of development, but wearisome at more -cultivated periods, when we prefer to have abstract theories conveyed in -abstract language, and limit the artist to the intrinsic meanings of the -images in which he deals. The whole class of more or less allegorical -writing has thus the peculiarity that something more is meant than meets -the ear. Part of its meaning depends upon a tacit convention in virtue of -which a beautiful woman, for example, is not simply a beautiful woman, but -also a representative of Justice and Charity. And as any such convention -is more or less arbitrary, we are often in perplexity to interpret the -author's meaning, and also to judge of the propriety of the symbols. The -allegorical intention, again, may be more or less present: and such a book -as Gulliver must be regarded as lying somewhere between the allegory and -the direct revelation of truth, which is more or less implied in the work -of every genuine artist. Its true purpose has thus rather puzzled critics. -Hazlitt[77] urges, for example, with his usual brilliancy, that Swift's -purpose was to "strip empty pride and grandeur of the imposing air which -external circumstances throw around them." Swift accordingly varies the -scale, so as to show the insignificance or the grossness of our self-love. -He does this with "mathematical precision;" he tries an experiment upon -human nature; and with the result that "nothing solid, nothing valuable is -left in his system but wisdom and virtue." So Gulliver's carrying off the -fleet of Blefuscu is "a mortifying stroke, aimed at national glory." -"After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was -in the right." - -Hazlitt naturally can see nothing misanthropical or innocent in such a -conclusion. The mask of imposture is torn off the world, and only -imposture can complain. This view, which has no doubt its truth, suggests -some obvious doubts. We are not invited, as a matter of fact, to attend to -the question of right and wrong, as between Lilliput and Blefuscu. The -real sentiment in Swift is that a war between these miserable pygmies is, -in itself, contemptible; and therefore, as he infers, war between men six -feet high is equally contemptible. The truth is that, although Swift's -solution of the problem may be called mathematically precise, the -precision does not extend to the supposed argument. If we insist upon -treating the question as one of strict logic, the only conclusion which -could be drawn from Gulliver is the very safe one that the interest of the -human drama does not depend upon the size of the actors. A pygmy or a -giant endowed with all our functions and thoughts would be exactly as -interesting as a being of the normal stature. It does not require a -journey to imaginary regions to teach us so much. And if we say that Swift -has shown us in his pictures the real essence of human life, we only say -for him what might be said with equal force of Shakspeare or Balzac, or -any great artist. The bare proof that the essence is not dependent upon -the external condition of size is superfluous and irrelevant; and we must -admit that Swift's method is childish, or that it does not adhere to this -strict logical canon. - -Hazlitt, however, comes nearer the truth, as I think, when he says that -Swift takes a view of human nature such as might be taken by a being of a -higher sphere. That, at least, is his purpose; only, as I think, he -pursues it by a neglect of "scientific reasoning." The use of the -machinery is simply to bring us into a congenial frame of mind. He strikes -the key-note of contempt by his imagery of dwarfs and giants. We despise -the petty quarrels of beings six inches high; and therefore we are -prepared to despise the wars carried on by a Marlborough and a Eugene. We -transfer the contempt based upon mere size, to the motives, which are the -same in big men and little. The argument, if argument there be, is a -fallacy; but it is equally efficacious for the feelings. You see the -pettiness and cruelty of the Lilliputians, who want to conquer an empire -defended by toy-ships; and you are tacitly invited to consider whether the -bigness of French men-of-war makes an attack upon them more respectable. -The force of the satire depends ultimately upon the vigour with which -Swift has described the real passions of human beings, big or little. He -really means to express a bitter contempt for statesmen and warriors, and -seduces us to his side, for the moment, by asking us to look at a -diminutive representation of the same beings. The quarrels which depend -upon the difference between the high-boots and the low-heeled shoes; or -upon breaking eggs at the big or little end; the party intrigues which -are settled by cutting capers on the tight-rope, are meant, of course, in -ridicule of political and religious parties; and its force depends upon -our previous conviction that the party-quarrels between our fellows are, -in fact, equally contemptible. Swift's satire is congenial to the mental -attitude of all who have persuaded themselves that men are, in fact, a set -of contemptible fools and knaves, in whose quarrels and mutual -slaughterings the wise and good could not persuade themselves to take a -serious interest. He "proves" nothing, mathematically or otherwise. If you -do not share his sentiments, there is nothing in the mere alteration of -the scale to convince you that they are right; you may say, with Hazlitt, -that heroism is as admirable in a Lilliputian as in a Brobdingnagian, and -believe that war calls forth patriotism, and often advances civilization. -What Swift has really done is to provide for the man who despises his -species a number of exceedingly effective symbols for the utterance of his -contempt. A child is simply amused with Bigendians and Littleendians; a -philosopher thinks that the questions really at the bottom of church -quarrels are in reality of more serious import: but the cynic who has -learnt to disbelieve in the nobility or wisdom of the great mass of his -species finds a most convenient metaphor for expressing his disbelief. In -this way _Gulliver's Travels_ contains a whole gallery of caricatures -thoroughly congenial to the despisers of humanity. - -In Brobdingnag Swift is generally said to be looking, as Scott expresses -it, through the other end of the telescope. He wishes to show the -grossness of men's passions, as before he has shown their pettiness. Some -of the incidents are devised in this sense; but we may notice that in -Brobdingnag he recurs to the Lilliput view. He gives such an application -to his fable as may be convenient, without bothering himself as to logical -consistency. He points out indeed the disgusting appearances which would -be presented by a magnified human body; but the King of Brobdingnag looks -down upon Gulliver, just as Gulliver looked down upon the Lilliputians. -The monarch sums up his view emphatically enough by saying, after -listening to Gulliver's version of modern history, that "the bulk of your -natives appear to me to be the most pernicious race of little odious -vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the earth." In -Lilliput and Brobdingnag, however, the satire scarcely goes beyond -pardonable limits. The details are often simply amusing, such as -Gulliver's fear when he gets home, of trampling upon the pygmies whom he -sees around him. And even the severest satire may be taken without offence -by every one who believes that petty motives, folly and selfishness, play -a large enough part in human life to justify some indignant exaggerations. -It is in the later parts that the ferocity of the man utters itself more -fully. The ridicule of the inventors in the third book is, as Arbuthnot -said at once, the least successful part of the whole; not only because -Swift was getting beyond his knowledge, and beyond the range of his -strongest antipathies, but also because there is no longer the ingenious -plausibility of the earlier books. The voyage to the Houyhnhnms, which -forms the best part, is more powerful, but more painful and repulsive. - -A word must here be said of the most unpleasant part of Swift's character. -A morbid interest in the physically disgusting is shown in several of his -writings. Some minor pieces, which ought to have been burnt, simply make -the gorge rise. Mrs. Pilkington tells us, and we can for once believe her, -that one "poem" actually made her mother sick. It is idle to excuse this -on the ground of contemporary freedom of speech. His contemporaries were -heartily disgusted. Indeed, though it is true that they revealed certain -propensities more openly, I see no reason to think that such propensities -were really stronger in them than in their descendants. The objection to -Swift is not that he spoke plainly, but that he brooded over filth -unnecessarily. No parallel can be found for his tendency even in writers, -for example, like Smollett and Fielding, who can be coarse enough when -they please, but whose freedom of speech reveals none of Swift's morbid -tendency. His indulgence in revolting images is to some extent an -indication of a diseased condition of his mind, perhaps of actual mental -decay. Delany says that it grew upon him in his later years, and, very -gratuitously, attributes it to Pope's influence. The peculiarity is the -more remarkable, because Swift was a man of the most scrupulous personal -cleanliness. He was always enforcing this virtue with special emphasis. He -was rigorously observant of decency in ordinary conversation. Delany once -saw him "fall into a furious resentment" with Stella for "a very small -failure of delicacy." So far from being habitually coarse, he pushed -fastidiousness to the verge of prudery. It is one of the superficial -paradoxes of Swift's character that this very shrinking from filth became -perverted into an apparently opposite tendency. In truth, his intense -repugnance to certain images led him to use them as the only adequate -expression of his savage contempt. Instances might be given in some early -satires, and in the attack upon dissenters in the _Tale of a Tub_. His -intensity of loathing leads him to besmear his antagonists with filth. He -becomes disgusting in the effort to express his disgust. As his -misanthropy deepened, he applied the same method to mankind at large. He -tears aside the veil of decency to show the bestial elements of human -nature; and his characteristic irony makes him preserve an apparent -calmness during the revolting exhibition. His state of mind is strictly -analogous to that of some religious ascetics, who stimulate their contempt -for the flesh by fixing their gaze upon decaying bodies. They seek to -check the love of beauty by showing us beauty in the grave. The cynic in -Mr. Tennyson's poem tells us that every face, however full-- - - Padded round with flesh and blood, - Is but moulded on a skull. - -Swift--a practised self-tormentor, though not in the ordinary ascetic -sense--mortifies any disposition to admire his fellows by dwelling upon -the physical necessities which seem to lower and degrade human pride. -Beauty is but skin deep; beneath it is a vile carcase. He always sees the -"flayed woman" of the _Tale of a Tub_. The thought is hideous, hateful, -horrible, and therefore it fascinates him. He loves to dwell upon the -hateful, because it justifies his hate. He nurses his misanthropy, as he -might tear his flesh to keep his mortality before his eyes. - -The Yahoo is the embodiment of the bestial element in man; and Swift in -his wrath takes the bestial for the predominating element. The hideous, -filthy, lustful monster yet asserts its relationship to him in the most -humiliating fashion: and he traces in its conduct the resemblance to all -the main activities of the human being. Like the human being it fights and -squabbles for the satisfaction of its lust, or to gain certain shiny -yellow stones; it befouls the weak and fawns upon the strong with -loathsome compliance; shows a strange love of dirt, and incurs diseases by -laziness and gluttony. Gulliver gives an account of his own breed of -Yahoos, from which it seems that they differ from the subjects of the -Houyhnhnms only by showing the same propensities on a larger scale; and -justifies his master's remark that all their institutions are owing to -"gross defects in reason and by consequence in virtue." The Houyhnhnms -meanwhile represent Swift's Utopia; they prosper and are happy, truthful -and virtuous, and therefore able to dispense with lawyers, physicians, -ministers and all the other apparatus of an effete civilization. It is in -this doctrine, as I may observe in passing, that Swift falls in with -Godwin and the revolutionists, though they believed in human -perfectibility, whilst they traced every existing evil to the impostures -and corruptions essential to all systems of government. Swift's view of -human nature, is too black to admit of any hopes of their millennium. - -The full wrath of Swift against his species shows itself in this ghastly -caricature. It is lamentable and painful, though even here we recognize -the morbid perversion of a noble wrath against oppression. One other -portrait in Swift's gallery demands a moment's notice. No poetic picture -in Dante or Milton can exceed the strange power of his prose description -of the Struldbrugs--those hideous immortals who are damned to an -everlasting life of drivelling incompetence. It is a translation of the -affecting myth of Tithonus into the repulsive details of downright prose. -It is idle to seek for any particular moral from these hideous phantoms of -Swift's dismal _Inferno_. They embody the terror which was haunting his -imagination as old age was drawing upon him. The sight, he says himself, -should reconcile a man to death. The mode of reconciliation is terribly -characteristic. Life is but a weary business at best; but, at least, we -cannot wish to drain so repulsive a cup to the dregs, when even the -illusions which cheered us at moments have been ruthlessly destroyed. -Swift was but too clearly prophesying the melancholy decay into which he -was himself to sink. - -The later books of _Gulliver_ have been in some sense excised from the -popular editions of the Travels. The Yahoos, and Houyhnhnms, and -Struldbrugs, are indeed known by name almost as well as the inhabitants of -Lilliput and Brobdingnag; but this part of the book is certainly not -reading for babes. It was probably written during the years when he was -attacking public corruption, and when his private happiness was being -destroyed, when therefore his wrath against mankind and against his own -fate was stimulated to the highest pitch. Readers who wish to indulge in a -harmless play of fancy will do well to omit the last two voyages; for the -strain of misanthropy which breathes in them is simply oppressive. They -are probably the sources from which the popular impression of Swift's -character is often derived. It is important, therefore, to remember that -they were wrung from him in later years, after a life tormented by -constant disappointment and disease. Most people hate the misanthropist -even if they are forced to admire his power. Yet we must not be carried -too far by the words. Swift's misanthropy was not all ignoble. We -generally prefer flattery even to sympathy. We like the man who is blind -to our faults better than the man who sees them and yet pities our -distresses. We have the same kind of feeling for the race as we have in -our own case. We are attracted by the kindly optimist who assures us that -good predominates in everything and everybody, and believes that a speedy -advent of the millennium must reward our manifold excellence. We cannot -forgive those who hold men to be "mostly fools," or, as Swift would -assert, mere brutes in disguise, and even carry out that disagreeable -opinion in detail. There is something uncomfortable and therefore -repellent of sympathy in the mood which dwells upon the darker side of -society, even though with wrathful indignation against the irremovable -evils. Swift's hatred of oppression, burning and genuine as it was, is no -apology with most readers for his perseverance in asserting its existence. -"Speak comfortable things to us" is the cry of men to the prophet in all -ages; and he who would assault abuses must count upon offending many who -do not approve them, but who would therefore prefer not to believe in -them. Swift, too, mixed an amount of egoism with his virtuous indignation, -which clearly lowers his moral dignity. He really hates wrongs to his -race; but his sensitiveness is roused when they are injuries to himself, -and committed by his enemies. The indomitable spirit which made him -incapable even of yielding to necessity, which makes him beat incessantly -against the bars which it was hopeless to break, and therefore waste -powers which might have done good service by aiming at the unattainable, -and nursing grudges against inexorable necessity, limits our sympathy with -his better nature. Yet some of us may take a different view, and rather -pity than condemn the wounded spirit so tortured and perverted, in -consideration of the real philanthropy which underlies the misanthropy, -and the righteous hatred of brutality and oppression which is but the -seamy side of a generous sympathy. At least we should be rather awed than -repelled by this spectacle of a nature of magnificent power struck down, -bruised and crushed under fortune, and yet fronting all antagonists with -increasing pride, and comforting itself with scorn even when it can no -longer injure its adversaries. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -DECLINE. - - -Swift survived his final settlement in Ireland for more than thirty years, -though during the last five or six it was but the outside shell of him -that lived. During every day in all those years Swift must have eaten and -drunk, and somehow or other got through the twenty-four hours. The war -against Wood's halfpence employed at most a few months in 1724, and all -his other political writings would scarcely fill a volume of this size. A -modern journalist who could prove that he had written as little in six -months would deserve a testimonial. _Gulliver's Travels_ appeared in 1727; -and ten years were to pass before his intellect became hopelessly clouded. -How was the remainder of his time filled? - -The death of Stella marks a critical point. Swift told Gay in 1723 that it -had taken three years to reconcile him to the country to which he was -condemned for ever. He came back "with an ill head and an aching -heart."[78] He was separated from the friends he had loved, and too old to -make new friends. A man, as he says elsewhere,[79] who had been bred in a -coal-pit might pass his time in it well enough; but if sent back to it -after a few months in upper air, he would find content less easy. Swift, -in fact, never became resigned to the "coal-pit," or, to use another of -his phrases, the "wretched, dirty dog-hole and prison," of which he could -only say that it was a "place good enough to die in." Yet he became so far -acclimatized as to shape a tolerable existence out of the fragments left -to him. Intelligent and cultivated men in Dublin, especially amongst the -clergy and the fellows of Trinity College, gathered round their famous -countryman. Swift formed a little court; he rubbed up his classics to the -academical standard, read a good deal of history, and even amused himself -with mathematics. He received on Sundays at the deanery, though his -entertainments seem to have been rather too economical for the taste of -his guests. "The ladies," Stella and Mrs. Dingley, were recognized as more -or less domesticated with him. Stella helped to receive his guests, though -not ostensibly as mistress of the household; and, if we may accept Swift's -estimate of her social talents, must have been a very charming hostess. If -some of Swift's guests were ill at ease in presence of the imperious and -moody exile, we may believe that during Stella's life there was more than -a mere semblance of agreeable society at the deanery. Her death, as Delany -tells us,[80] led to a painful change. Swift's temper became sour and -ungovernable; his avarice grew into a monomania; at times he grudged even -a single bottle of wine to his friends; the giddiness and deafness which -had tormented him by fits, now became a part of his life. Reading came to -be impossible, because (as Delany thinks) his obstinate refusal to wear -spectacles had injured his sight. He still struggled hard against disease; -he rode energetically, though two servants had to accompany him in case -of accidents from giddiness; he took regular "constitutionals" up and down -stairs when he could not go out. His friends thought that he injured -himself by over-exercise; and the battle was necessarily a losing one. -Gradually the gloom deepened; friends dropped off by death, and were -alienated by his moody temper; he was surrounded, as they thought, by -designing sycophants. His cousin, Mrs. Whiteway, who took care of him in -his last years, seems to have been both kindly and sensible; but he became -unconscious of kindness, and in 1741 had to be put under restraint. We may -briefly fill up some details in the picture. - -Swift at Dublin recalls Napoleon at Elba. The duties of a deanery are not -supposed, I believe, to give absorbing employment for all the faculties of -the incumbent; but an empire, however small, may be governed; and Swift at -an early period set about establishing his supremacy within his small -domains. He maintained his prerogatives against the archbishop, and -subdued his chapter. His inferiors submitted, and could not fail to -recognize his zeal for the honour of the body. But his superiors found him -less amenable. He encountered episcopal authority with his old -haughtiness. He bade an encroaching bishop remember that he was speaking -"to a clergyman, and not to a footman."[81] He fell upon an old friend, -Sterne, the Bishop of Clogher, for granting a lease to some "old fanatic -knight." He takes the opportunity of reviling the bishops for favouring -"two abominable bills for beggaring and enslaving the clergy (which took -their birth from hell)," and says that he had thereupon resolved to have -"no more commerce with persons of such prodigious grandeur, who, I -feared, in a little time, would expect me to kiss their slipper."[82] He -would not even look into a coach, lest he should see such a thing as a -bishop--a sight that would strike him with terror. In a bitter satire he -describes Satan as the bishop to whom the rest of the Irish bench are -suffragans. His theory was that the English Government always appointed -admirable divines, but that unluckily all the new bishops were murdered on -Hounslow Heath by highwaymen, who took their robes and patents, and so -usurped the Irish sees. It is not surprising that Swift's episcopal -acquaintance was limited. - -In his deanery Swift discharged his duties with despotic benevolence. He -performed the services, carefully criticized young preachers, got his -musical friends to help him in regulating his choir, looked carefully -after the cathedral repairs, and improved the revenues at the cost of his -own interests. His pugnacity broke out repeatedly even in such apparently -safe directions. He erected a monument to the Duke of Schomberg after an -attempt to make the duke's descendants pay for it themselves. He said that -if they tried to avoid the duty by reclaiming the body, he would take up -the bones, and put the skeleton "in his register office, to be a memorial -of their baseness to all posterity."[83] He finally relieved his feelings -by an epitaph, which is a bitter taunt against the duke's relations. - -Happily he gave less equivocal proofs of the energy which he could put -into his duties. His charity was unsurpassed both for amount and judicious -distribution. Delany declares that in spite of his avarice he would give -five pounds more easily than richer men would give as many shillings. "I -never," says this good authority, "saw poor so carefully and -conscientiously attended to in my life as those of his cathedral." He -introduced and carried out within his own domains a plan for -distinguishing the deserving poor by badges--in anticipation of modern -schemes for "organization of charity." With the first five hundred pounds -which he possessed he formed a fund for granting loans to industrious -tradesmen and citizens, to be repaid by weekly instalments. It was said -that by this scheme he had been the means of putting more than 200 -families in a comfortable way of living.[84] He had, says Delany, a whole -"seraglio" of distressed old women in Dublin; there was scarcely a lane in -the whole city where he had not such a "mistress." He saluted them kindly, -inquired into their affairs, bought trifles from them, and gave them such -titles as Pullagowna, Stumpa-Nympha, and so forth. The phrase "seraglio" -may remind us of Johnson's establishment, who has shown his prejudice -against Swift in nothing more than in misjudging a charity akin to his -own, though apparently directed with more discretion. The "rabble," it is -clear, might be grateful for other than political services. To personal -dependents he was equally liberal. He supported his widowed sister, who -had married a scapegrace in opposition to his wishes. He allowed an -annuity of 52_l._ a year to Stella's companion, Mrs. Dingley, and made her -suppose that the money was not a gift, but the produce of a fund for which -he was trustee. He showed the same liberality to Mrs. Ridgway, daughter of -his old housekeeper, Mrs. Brent; paying her an annuity of 20_l._, and -giving her a bond to secure the payment in case of accidents. Considering -the narrowness of Swift's income, and that he seems also to have had -considerable trouble about obtaining his rents and securing his invested -savings, we may say that his so-called "avarice" was not inconsistent with -unusual munificence. He pared his personal expenditure to the quick, not -that he might be rich, but that he might be liberal. - -Though for one reason or other Swift was at open war with a good many of -the higher classes, his court was not without distinguished favourites. -The most conspicuous amongst them were Delany and Sheridan. Delany -(1685-1768), when Swift first knew him, was a Fellow of Trinity College. -He was a scholar, and a man of much good feeling and intelligence, and -eminently agreeable in society; his theological treatises seem to have -been fanciful, but he could write pleasant verses, and had great -reputation as a college tutor. He married two rich wives, and Swift -testifies that his good qualities were not the worse for his wealth, nor -his purse generally fuller. He was so much given to hospitality as to be -always rather in difficulties. He was a man of too much amiability and -social suavity not to be a little shocked at some of Swift's savage -outbursts, and scandalized by his occasional improprieties. Yet he -appreciated the nobler qualities of the staunch, if rather alarming, -friend. It is curious to remember that his second wife, who was one of -Swift's later correspondents, survived to be the venerated friend of Fanny -Burney (1752-1840), and that many living people may thus remember one who -was familiar with the latest of Swift's female favourites. Swift's closest -friend and crony, however, was the elder Sheridan, the ancestor of a race -fertile in genius, though unluckily his son, Swift's biographer, seems to -have transmitted without possessing any share of it. Thomas Sheridan, the -elder, was the typical Irishman--kindly, witty, blundering, full of -talents and imprudences, careless of dignity, and a child in the ways of -the world. He was a prosperous schoolmaster in Dublin when Swift first -made his acquaintance (about 1718), so prosperous as to decline a less -precarious post, of which Swift got him the offer. - -After the war of Wood's halfpence Swift became friendly with Carteret, -whom he respected as a man of genuine ability, and who had besides the -virtue of being thoroughly distrusted by Walpole. When Carteret was asked -how he had succeeded in Ireland, he replied that he had pleased Dr. Swift. -Swift took advantage of the mutual goodwill to recommend several promising -clergymen to Carteret's notice. He was specially warm in behalf of -Sheridan, who received the first vacant living and a chaplaincy. Sheridan -characteristically spoilt his own chances by preaching a sermon upon the -day of the accession of the Hanoverian family, from the text, "Sufficient -unto the day is the evil thereof." The sermon was not political, and the -selection of the text a pure accident; but Sheridan was accused of -Jacobitism, and lost his chaplaincy in consequence. Though generously -compensated by the friend in whose pulpit he had committed this -"Sheridanism," he got into difficulties. His school fell off; he exchanged -his preferments for others less preferable; he failed in a school at -Cavan, and ultimately the poor man came back to die at Dublin, in 1738, in -distressed circumstances. Swift's relations with him were thoroughly -characteristic. He defended his cause energetically; gave him most -admirably good advice in rather dictatorial terms; admitted him to the -closest familiarity, and sometimes lost his temper when Sheridan took a -liberty at the wrong moment, or resented the liberties taken by himself. -A queer character of the "Second Solomon," written, it seems, in 1729, -shows the severity with which Swift could sometimes judge his shiftless -and impulsive friend, and the irritability with which he could resent -occasional assertions of independence. "He is extremely proud and -captious," says Swift, and "apt to resent as an affront or indignity what -was never intended for either," but what, we must add, had a strong -likeness to both. One cause of poor Sheridan's troubles was doubtless that -assigned by Swift. Mrs. Sheridan, says this frank critic, is "the most -disagreeable beast in Europe," a "most filthy slut, lazy, and slothful, -luxurious, ill-natured, envious, suspicious," and yet managing to govern -Sheridan. This estimate was apparently shared by her husband, who makes -various references to her detestation of Swift. In spite of all jars, -Swift was not only intimate with Sheridan and energetic in helping him, -but to all appearance really loved him. Swift came to Sheridan's house -when the workmen were moving the furniture, preparatory to his departure -for Cavan. Swift burst into tears, and hid himself in a dark closet before -he could regain his self-possession. He paid a visit to his old friend -afterwards; but was now in that painful and morbid state in which violent -outbreaks of passion made him frequently intolerable. Poor Sheridan rashly -ventured to fulfil an old engagement that he would tell Swift frankly of a -growing infirmity, and said something about avarice. "Doctor," replied -Swift, significantly, "did you never read _Gil Blas_?" When Sheridan soon -afterwards sold his school to return to Dublin, Swift received his old -friend so inhospitably that Sheridan left him, never again to enter the -house. Swift indeed had ceased to be Swift; and Sheridan died soon -afterwards. - -Swift often sought relief from the dreariness of the deanery by retiring -to, or rather by taking possession of, his friends' country-houses. In -1725 he stayed for some months, together with "the ladies," at Quilca, a -small country-house of Sheridan's, and compiled an account of the -deficiencies of the establishment--meant to be continued weekly. Broken -tables, doors without locks, a chimney stuffed with the dean's great-coat, -a solitary pair of tongs forced to attend all the fireplaces and also to -take the meat from the pot, holes in the floors, spikes protruding from -the bedsteads, are some of the items; whilst the servants are all thieves, -and act upon the proverb, "The worse their sty, the longer they lie." -Swift amused himself here and elsewhere by indulging his taste in -landscape gardening, without the consent and often to the annoyance of the -proprietor. In 1728--the year of Stella's death--he passed eight months at -Sir Arthur Acheson's, near Market Hill. He was sickly, languid, and -anxious to escape from Dublin, where he had no company but that of his -"old presbyterian housekeeper, Mrs. Brent." He had, however, energy enough -to take the household in hand after his usual fashion. He superintended -Lady Acheson's studies, made her read to him, gave her plenty of good -advice; bullied the butler; looked after the dairy and the garden, and -annoyed Sir Arthur by summarily cutting down an old thorn-tree. He liked -the place so much that he thought of building a house there, which was to -be called Drapier's Hall, but abandoned the project for reasons which, -after his fashion, he expressed with great frankness in a poem. Probably -the chief reason was the very obvious one which strikes all people who -are tempted to build; but that upon which he chiefly dwells is Sir -Arthur's defects as an entertainer. The knight used, it seems, to lose -himself in metaphysical moonings when he should have been talking to Swift -and attending to his gardens and farms. Swift entered a house less as a -guest than a conqueror. His dominion, it is clear, must have become -burdensome in his later years, when his temper was becoming savage and his -fancies more imperious. - -Such a man was the natural prey of sycophants, who would bear his humours -for interested motives. Amongst Swift's numerous clients some doubtless -belonged to this class. The old need of patronizing and protecting still -displays itself; and there is something very touching in the zeal for his -friends which survived breaking health and mental decay. His -correspondence is full of eager advocacy. Poor Miss Kelly, neglected by an -unnatural parent, comes to Swift as her natural adviser. He intercedes on -behalf of the prodigal son of a Mr. FitzHerbert in a letter which is a -model of judicious and delicate advocacy. His old friend, Barber, had -prospered in business; he was Lord Mayor of London in 1733, and looked -upon Swift as the founder of his fortunes. To him, "my dear good old -friend in the best and worst times," Swift writes a series of letters, -full of pathetic utterances of his regrets for old friends amidst -increasing infirmities, and full also of appeals on behalf of others. He -induced Barber to give a chaplaincy to Pilkington, a young clergyman of -whose talent and modesty Swift was thoroughly convinced. Mrs. Pilkington -was a small poetess, and the pair had crept into some intimacy at the -deanery. Unluckily Swift had reasons to repent his patronage. The pair -were equally worthless. The husband tried to get a divorce; and the wife -sank into misery. One of her last experiments was to publish by -subscription certain "Memoirs," which contain some interesting but -untrustworthy anecdotes of Swift's later years.[85] He had rather better -luck with Mrs. Barber, wife of a Dublin woollendraper, who, as Swift says, -was "poetically given, and, for a woman, had a sort of genius that way." -He pressed her claims not only upon her namesake, the Mayor, but upon Lord -Carteret, Lady Betty Germaine, and Gay and his duchess. A forged letter to -Queen Caroline in Swift's name on behalf of this poetess naturally raised -some suspicions. Swift, however, must have been convinced of her -innocence. He continued his interest in her for years, during which we are -glad to find that she gave up poetry for selling Irish linens and letting -lodgings at Bath; and one of Swift's last acts before his decay was to -present her, at her own request, with the copyright of his _Polite -Conversations_. Everybody, she said, would subscribe for a work of -Swift's, and it would put her in easy circumstances. Mrs. Barber clearly -had no delicacy in turning Swift's liberality to account; but she was a -respectable and sensible woman, and managed to bring up two sons to -professions. Liberality of this kind came naturally to Swift. He provided -for a broken-down old officer, Captain Creichton, by compiling his memoirs -for him, to be published by subscription. "I never," he says in 1735, "got -a farthing by anything I wrote--except once by Pope's prudent management." -This probably refers to _Gulliver_, for which he seems to have received -200_l._ He apparently gave his share in the profits of the _Miscellanies_ -to the widow of a Dublin printer. - -A few words may now be said about these last writings. In reading some of -them, we must remember his later mode of life. He generally dined alone, -or with old Mrs. Brent, then sat alone in his closet till he went to bed -at eleven. The best company in Dublin, he said, was barely tolerable, and -those who had been tolerable were now unsupportable. He could no longer -read by candle-light, and his only resource was to write rubbish, most of -which he burnt. The merest trifles that he ever wrote, he says in 1731, -"are serious philosophical lucubrations in comparison to what I now busy -myself about." This, however, was but the development of a lifelong -practice. His favourite maxim, _Vive la bagatelle_, is often quoted by -Pope and Bolingbroke. As he had punned in his youth with Lord Berkeley, so -he amused himself in later years by a constant interchange of trifles with -his friends, and above all with Sheridan. Many of these trifles have been -preserved; they range from really good specimens of Swift's rather -sardonic humour down to bad riddles and a peculiar kind of playing upon -words. A brief specimen of one variety will be amply sufficient. Sheridan -writes to Swift. _Times a re veri de ad nota do it oras hi lingat almi e -state._ The words separately are Latin, and are to be read into the -English: "Times are very dead; not a doit or a shilling at all my estate." -Swift writes to Sheridan in English, which reads into Latin, "Am I say -vain a rabble is," means, _Amice venerabilis_--and so forth. Whole -manuscript books are still in existence filled with jargon of this kind. -Charles Fox declared that Swift must be a goodnatured man to have had such -a love of nonsense. We may admit some of it to be a proof of good-humour -in the same sense as a love of the backgammon in which he sometimes -indulged. It shows, that is, a willingness to kill time in company. But it -must be admitted that the impression becomes different when we think of -Swift in his solitude wasting the most vigorous intellect in the country -upon ingenuities beneath that of the composer of double acrostics. Delany -declares that the habit helped to weaken his intellect. Rather it showed -that his intellect was preying upon itself. Once more we have to think of -the "conjured spirit," and the ropes of sand. Nothing can well be more -lamentable. Books full of this stuff impress us like products of the -painful ingenuity by which some prisoner for life has tried to relieve -himself of the intolerable burden of solitary confinement. Swift seems to -betray the secret when he tells Bolingbroke that at his age "I often -thought of death; but now it is never out of my mind." He repeats this -more than once. He does not fear death, he says; indeed he longed for it. -His regular farewell to a friend was, "Good night; I hope I shall never -see you again." He had long been in the habit of "lamenting" his birthday, -though, in earlier days, Stella and other friends had celebrated the -anniversary. Now it became a day of unmixed gloom, and the chapter in -which Job curses the hour of his birth lay open all day on his table. "And -yet," he says, "I love _la bagatelle_ better than ever." Rather we should -say, "and therefore," for in truth the only excuse for such trifling was -the impossibility of finding any other escape from settled gloom. Friends -indeed seem to have adopted at times the theory that a humourist must -always be on the broad grin. They called him the "laughter-loving" dean, -and thought Gulliver a "merry book." A strange effect is produced when -between two of the letters in which Swift utters the bitterest agonies of -his soul during Stella's illness, we have a letter from Bolingbroke to the -"three Yahoos of Twickenham" (Pope, Gay, and Swift), referring to Swift's -"divine science, _la bagatelle_" and ending with the benediction, "Mirth -be with you!" From such mirth we can only say, may heaven protect us; for -it would remind us of nothing but the mirth of Redgauntlet's companions -when they sat dead (and damned) at their ghastly revelry, and their -laughter passed into such wild sounds as made the daring piper's "very -nails turn blue." - -It is not, however, to be inferred that all Swift's recreations were so -dreary as this Anglo-Latin, or that his facetiousness always covered an -aching heart. There is real humour, and not all of bitter flavour, in some -of the trifles which passed between Swift and his friends. The most famous -is the poem called _The Grand Question Debated_, the question being -whether an old building called Hamilton's Bawn, belonging to Sir A. -Acheson, should be turned into a malthouse or a barrack. Swift takes the -opportunity of caricaturing the special object of his aversion, the -blustering and illiterate soldier, though he indignantly denies that he -had said anything disagreeable to his hospitable entertainer. Lady Acheson -encouraged him in writing such "lampoons." Her taste cannot have been very -delicate,[86] and she perhaps did not perceive how a rudeness which -affects to be only playful may be really offensive. If the poem shows that -Swift took liberties with his friends, it also shows that he still -possessed the strange power of reproducing the strain of thought of a -vulgar mind which he exhibited in Mr. Harris's petition. Two other works -which appeared in these last years are more remarkable proofs of the same -power. _The Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation_ and -the _Directions to Servants_, are most singular performances, and -curiously illustrative of Swift's habits of thought and composition. He -seems to have begun them during some of his early visits to England. He -kept them by him and amused himself by working upon them, though they were -never quite finished. The _Polite Conversation_ was given, as we have -seen, to Mrs. Barber in his later years, and the _Directions to Servants_ -came into the printer's hands when he was already imbecile. They show how -closely Swift's sarcastic attention was fixed through life upon the ways -of his inferiors. They are a mass of materials for a natural history of -social absurdities such as Mr. Darwin was in the habit of bestowing upon -the manners and customs of worms. The difference is that Darwin had none -but kindly feelings for worms, whereas Swift's inspection of social vermin -is always edged with contempt. The conversations are a marvellous -collection of the set of cant phrases which at best have supplied the -absence of thought in society. Incidentally there are some curious -illustrations of the customs of the day; though one cannot suppose that -any human beings had ever the marvellous flow of pointless proverbs with -which Lord Sparkish, Mr. Neverout, Miss Notable and the rest manage to -keep the ball incessantly rolling. The talk is nonsensical, as most -small-talk would be, if taken down by a reporter, and, according to modern -standard, hideously vulgar, and yet it flows on with such vivacity that it -is perversely amusing. - - _Lady Answerall._ But, Mr. Neverout, I wonder why such a handsome, - straight young gentleman as you don't get some rich widow? - - _Lord Sparkish._ Straight! Ay, straight as my leg, and that's crooked - at the knee. - - _Neverout._ Truth, madam, if it rained rich widows, none would fall - upon me. Egad, I was born under a threepenny planet, never to be worth - a groat. - -And so the talk flows on, and to all appearance might flow for ever. - -Swift professes in his preface to have sat many hundred times with his -table-book ready, without catching a single phrase for his book in eight -hours. Truly he is a kind of Boswell of inanities; and one is amazed at -the quantity of thought which must have gone into this elaborate trifling -upon trifles. A similar vein of satire upon the emptiness of writers is -given in his _Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Human Mind_; but -that is a mere skit compared with this strange performance. The -_Directions to Servants_ shows an equal amount of thought exerted upon the -various misdoings of the class assailed. Some one has said that it is -painful to read so minute and remorseless an exposure of one variety of -human folly. Undoubtedly it suggests that Swift must have appeared to be -an omniscient master. Delany, as I have said, testifies to his excellence -in that capacity. Many anecdotes attest the close attention which he -bestowed upon every detail of his servants' lives, and the humorous -reproofs which he administered. "Sweetheart," he said to an ugly cookmaid -who had overdone a joint, "take this down to the kitchen and do it less." -"That is impossible," she replied. "Then," he said, "if you must commit -faults, commit faults that can be mended." Another story tells how when a -servant had excused himself for not cleaning boots on the ground that -they would soon be dirty again, Swift made him apply the same principle to -eating breakfast, which would be only a temporary remedy for hunger. In -this, as in every relation of life, Swift was under a kind of necessity of -imposing himself upon every one in contact with him, and followed out his -commands into the minutest details. In the _Directions to Servants_ he has -accumulated the results of his experience in one department; and the -reading may not be without edification to the people who every now and -then announce as a new discovery that servants are apt to be selfish, -indolent, and slatternly, and to prefer their own interests to their -master's. Probably no fault could be found with the modern successors of -eighteenth-century servants, which has not already been exemplified in -Swift's presentment of that golden age of domestic comfort. The details -are not altogether pleasant; but, admitting such satire to be legitimate, -Swift's performance is a masterpiece. - -Swift, however, left work of a more dignified kind. Many of the letters in -his correspondence are admirable specimens of a perishing art. The most -interesting are those which passed between him, Pope, and Bolingbroke, and -which were published by Pope's contrivance during Swift's last period. "I -look upon us three," says Swift, "as a peculiar triumvirate, who have -nothing to expect or fear, and so far fittest to converse with one -another." We may perhaps believe Swift when he says that he "never leaned -on his elbow to consider what he should write" (except to fools, lawyers, -and ministers), though we certainly cannot say the same of his friends. -Pope and Bolingbroke are full of affectations, now transparent enough; but -Swift in a few trenchant, outspoken phrases, dashes out a portrait of -himself as impressive as it is in some ways painful. We must, indeed, -remember in reading his inverse hypocrisy, his tendency to call his own -motives by their ugliest names--a tendency which is specially pronounced -in writing letters to the old friends whose very names recall the memories -of past happiness, and lead him to dwell upon the gloomiest side of the -present. There is too a characteristic reserve upon some points. In his -last visit to Pope, Swift left his friend's house after hearing the bad -accounts of Stella's health, and hid himself in London lodgings. He never -mentioned his anxieties to his friend, who heard of them first from -Sheridan; and in writing afterwards from Dublin, Swift excuses himself for -the desertion by referring to his own ill-health--doubtless a true cause -("two sick friends never did well together")--and his anxiety about his -affairs, without a word about Stella. A phrase of Bolingbroke's in the -previous year about "the present Stella, whoever she may be," seems to -prove that he too had no knowledge of Stella except from the poems -addressed to the name. There were depths of feeling which Swift could not -lay bare to the friend in whose affection he seems most thoroughly to have -trusted. Meanwhile he gives full vent to the scorn of mankind and himself, -the bitter and unavailing hatred of oppression, and above all for that -strange mingling of pride and remorse which is always characteristic of -his turn of mind. When he leaves Arbuthnot and Pope he expresses the -warmth of his feelings by declaring that he will try to forget them. He is -deeply grieved by the death of Congreve, and the grief makes him almost -regret that he ever had a friend. He would give half his fortune for the -temper of an easy-going acquaintance who could take up or lose a friend as -easily as a cat. "Is not this the true happy man?" The loss of Gay cuts -him to the heart; he notes on the letter announcing it that he had kept -the letter by him five days "by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." He -cannot speak of it except to say that he regrets that long living has not -hardened him; and that he expects to die poor and friendless. Pope's -ill-health "hangs on his spirits." His moral is that if he were to begin -the world again, he would never run the risk of a friendship with a poor -or sickly man--for he cannot harden himself. "Therefore I argue that -avarice and hardness of heart are the two happiest qualities a man can -acquire who is late in his life, because by living long we must lessen our -friends or may increase our fortunes." This bitterness is equally apparent -in regard to the virtues on which he most prided himself. His patriotism -was owing to "perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of -slavery, folly, and baseness;" in which, as he says, he is the direct -contrary of Pope, who can despise folly and hate vice without losing his -temper or thinking the worse of individuals. "Oppression tortures him," -and means bitter hatred of the concrete oppressor. He tells Barber in 1738 -that for three years he has been but the shadow of his former self, and -has entirely lost his memory, "except when it is roused by perpetual -subjects of vexation." Commentators have been at pains to show that such -sentiments are not philanthropic; yet they are the morbid utterance of a -noble and affectionate nature soured by long misery and disappointment. -They brought their own punishment. The unhappy man was fretting himself -into melancholy and was losing all sources of consolation. "I have nobody -now left but you," he writes to Pope in 1736; his invention is gone; he -makes projects which end in the manufacture of waste paper; and what vexes -him most is that his "female friends have now forsaken him." "Years and -infirmities," he says in the end of the same year (about the date of the -_Legion Club_), "have quite broke me; I can neither read, nor write, nor -remember, nor converse. All I have left is to walk and ride." A few -letters are preserved in the next two years--melancholy wails over his -loss of health and spirit--pathetic expressions of continual affection for -his "dearest and almost only constant friend," and a warm request or two -for services to some of his acquaintance. - -The last stage was rapidly approaching. Swift who had always been thinking -of death in these later years, had anticipated the end in the remarkable -verses _On the Death of Dr. Swift_. This and two or three other -performances of about the same period, especially the _Rhapsody on Poetry_ -(1733) and the _Verses to a Lady_ are Swift's chief title to be called a -poet. How far that name can be conceded to him is a question of -classification. Swift's originality appears in the very fact that he -requires a new class to be made for him. He justified Dryden's remark in -so far as he was never a poet in the sense in which Milton or Wordsworth -or Shelley or even Dryden himself were poets. His poetry may be called -rhymed prose, and should perhaps be put at about the same level in the -scale of poetry as _Hudibras_. It differs from prose not simply in being -rhymed, but in that the metrical form seems to be the natural and -appropriate mode of utterance. Some of the purely sarcastic and humorous -phrases recall _Hudibras_ more nearly than anything else; as, for example, -the often-quoted verses upon small critics in the _Rhapsody_. - - The vermin only tease and pinch - Their foes superior by an inch. - So, naturalists observe a flea - Has smaller fleas that on him prey, - And these have smaller still to bite 'em, - And so proceed _ad infinitum_. - -In the verses on his own death, the suppressed passion, the glow and force -of feeling which we perceive behind the merely moral and prosaic phrases -seem to elevate the work to a higher level. It is a mere running of -every-day language into easy-going verse; and yet the strangely mingled -pathos and bitterness, the peculiar irony of which he was the great -master, affect us with a sentiment which may be called poetical in -substance, more forcibly than far more dignified and in some sense -imaginative performances. Whatever name we may please to give to such -work, Swift has certainly struck home and makes an impression which it is -difficult to compress into a few phrases. It is the essence of all that is -given at greater length in the correspondence; and starts from a comment -upon Rochefoucauld's congenial maxim about the misfortunes of our friends. -He tells how his acquaintance watch his decay, tacitly congratulating -themselves that "it is not yet so bad with us;" how, when he dies, they -laugh at the absurdity of his will. - - To public uses! there's a whim! - What had the public done for him? - Mere envy, avarice, and pride, - He gave it all--but first he died. - -Then we have the comments of Queen Caroline and Sir Robert and the -rejoicings of Grub Street at the chance of passing off rubbish by calling -it his. His friends are really touched. - - Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay - A week, and Arbuthnot a day, - St. John himself will scarce forbear - To bite his pen and drop a tear, - The rest will give a shrug and cry, - "'Tis pity, but we all must die!" - -The ladies talk over it at their cards. They have learnt to show their -tenderness, and - - Receive the news in doleful dumps. - The dean is dead (pray what is trumps?); - Then, Lord have mercy on his soul! - (Ladies, I'll venture for the _vole_). - -The poem concludes, as usual, with an impartial character of the dean. He -claims, with a pride not unjustifiable, the power of independence, love of -his friends, hatred of corruption and so forth; admits that he may have -had "too much satire in his vein," though adding the very questionable -assertion that he "lashed the vice but spared the name." Marlborough, -Wharton, Burnet, Steele, Walpole and a good many more might have had -something to say upon that head. The last phrase is significant,-- - - He gave the little wealth he had - To build a house for fools and mad; - And showed by one satiric touch - No nation needed it so much, - That kingdom he hath left his debtor, - I wish it soon may have a better! - -For some years, in fact, Swift had spent much thought and time in -arranging the details of this bequest. He ultimately left about -12,000_l._, with which, and some other contributions, St. Patrick's -Hospital was opened for fifty patients in the year 1757. - -The last few years of Swift's life were passed in an almost total eclipse -of intellect. One pathetic letter to Mrs. Whiteway gives almost the last -touch. "I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf -and full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot express the -mortification I am under both of body and mind. All I can say is that I am -not in torture; but I daily and hourly expect it. Pray let me know how -your health is and your family. I hardly understand one word I write. I am -sure my days will be very few, for miserable they must be. If I do not -blunder, it is Saturday, July 26, 1740. If I live till Monday, I shall -hope to see you, perhaps for the last time." Even after this he -occasionally showed gleams of his former intelligence, and is said to have -written a well-known epigram during an outing with his attendants:-- - - Behold a proof of Irish sense! - Here Irish wit is seen! - When nothing's left that's worth defence - They build a magazine. - -Occasionally he gave way to furious outbursts of violent temper; and once -suffered great torture from a swelling in the eye. But his general state -seems to have been apathetic; sometimes he tried to speak, but was unable -to find words. A few sentences have been recorded. On hearing that -preparations were being made for celebrating his birthday, he said, "It is -all folly; they had better let it alone." Another time he was heard to -mutter, "I am what I am; I am what I am." Few details have been given of -this sad period of mental eclipse; nor can we regret their absence. It is -enough to say that he suffered occasional tortures from the development of -the brain-disease; though as a rule he enjoyed the painlessness of torpor. -The unhappy man lingered till the 19th of October, 1745, when he died -quietly at three in the afternoon, after a night of convulsions. He was -buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and over his grave was placed an -epitaph, containing the last of those terrible phrases which cling to our -memory whenever his name is mentioned. Swift lies, in his own words,-- - - Ubi sæva indignatio - Cor ulterius lacerare nequit. - -What more can be added? - - -THE END. - - - LONDON: - GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, - ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] _Deane Swift_, p. 15. - -[2] Readers may remember a clever adaptation of this incident in Lord -Lytton's _My Novel_. - -[3] Possibly this was his cousin Thomas, but the probabilities are clearly -in favour of Jonathan. - -[4] In the _Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton_. - -[5] It will be seen that I accept Dr. Barrett's statements, _Earlier Part -of the Life of Swift_, pp. 13, 14. His arguments seem to me sufficiently -clear and conclusive, and they are accepted by Monck Mason, though treated -contemptuously by Mr. Forster, p. 34. On the other hand, I agree with Mr. -Forster that Swift's complicity in the _Terræ Filius_ oration is not -proved, though it is not altogether improbable. - -[6] Temple had the reversion of his father's office. - -[7] It may be noticed in illustration of the growth of the Swift legend, -that two demonstrably false anecdotes--one imputing a monstrous crime, the -other a romantic piece of benevolence to Swift--refer to this period. - -[8] M. Maralt. See appendix to Courtenay's _Life of Temple_. - -[9] The publichouse at the point thus named on the ordnance map is now (I -regret to say) called the Jolly Farmer. - -[10] The most direct statement to this effect was made in an article in -the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1757. It professes to speak with authority, -but includes such palpable blunders as to carry little weight. - -[11] I am not certain whether this means 1681 or 1681-82. I have assumed -the former date in mentioning Stella's age; but the other is equally -possible. - -[12] Wotton first accused Swift of borrowing the idea of the battle from a -French book, by one Coutray, called _Histoire Poétique de la Guerre -nouvellement declarée entre les Anciens et Modernes_. Swift declared (I -have no doubt truly) that he had never seen or heard of this book. But -Coutray, like Swift, uses the scheme of a mock Homeric battle. The book is -prose, but begins with a poem. The resemblance is much closer than Mr. -Forster's language would imply; but I agree with him that it does not -justify Johnson and Scott in regarding it as more than a natural -coincidence. Every detail is different. - -[13] This was a treatise by Thomas, twin brother of Henry Vaughan, the -"Silurist." It led to a controversy with Henry More. Vaughan was a -Rosicrucian. Swift's contempt for mysteries is characteristic. Sendivogus -was a famous alchemist (1566-1646). - -[14] See Forster, p. 117. - -[15] He was in England from April to September in 1701, from April to -November in 1702, from November 1703 till May 1704, for an uncertain part -of 1705, and again for over fifteen months from the end of 1707 till the -beginning of 1709. - -[16] Mr. Forster found the original MS., and gives us the exact numbers: -96 omitted, 44 added, 22 altered. The whole was 178 lines _after_ the -omissions. - -[17] See letter to _Peterborough_, May 6, 1711. - -[18] In most of their principles the two parties seem to have shifted -opinions since their institution in the reign of Charles II. _Examiner_, -No. 43. May 31, 1711. - -[19] Delany, p. 211. - -[20] Letter to King, Jan. 6th, 1709. - -[21] Swift to King, July 12, 1711. - -[22] These dinners, it may be noticed, seem to have been held on Thursdays -when Harley had to attend the court at Windsor. This may lead to some -confusion with the Brothers' Club, which met on Thursdays during the -parliamentary session. - -[23] _Letter to a Whig Lord_, 1712. - -[24] _Journal to Stella_, Feb. 6th, 1712, and Jan. 8th and 25th, 1712. - -[25] _Ib._ Jan. 7th, 1711. - -[26] _Ib._ Jan. 21st, 1712. - -[27] _Ib._ Dec. 31st, 1710. - -[28] _Conduct of the Allies._ - -[29] _Advice to October Club._ - -[30] _Behaviour of Queen's Ministry._ - -[31] There was enough plausibility in this scandal to give it a sting. The -duchess had left her second husband, a Mr. Thynne, immediately after the -marriage ceremony, and fled to Holland. There Count Coningsmark paid her -his addresses, and, coming to England, had Mr. Thynne shot by ruffians in -Pall Mall. See the curious case in the _State Trials_, vol. ix. - -[32] Letters from Smalridge and Dr. Davenant in 1713. - -[33] Letter to Lord Palmerston, Jan. 29th, 1726. - -[34] June 22nd, 1711. - -[35] The list, so far as I can make it out from references in the journal, -appears to include more names. One or two had probably retired. The peers -are as follows:--The Dukes of Shrewsbury (perhaps only suggested), Ormond -and Beaufort; Lords Orrery, Rivers, Dartmouth, Dupplin, Masham, Bathurst, -and Lansdowne (the last three were of the famous twelve); and the -commoners are Swift, Sir R. Raymond, Jack Hill, Disney, Sir W. Wyndham, -St. John, Prior, Friend, Arbuthnot, Harley (son of Lord Oxford), and -Harcourt (son of Lord Harcourt). - -[36] Feb. 28th, 1712. - -[37] Its authenticity was doubted, but, as I think, quite gratuitously, by -Johnson, by Lord Stanhope, and, as Stanhope says, by Macaulay. The dulness -is easily explicable by the circumstances of the composition. - -[38] April 13, 1713. - -[39] Letter to King, Dec. 16th, 1716. - -[40] _Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry._ - -[41] _Autobiography_, i. 407. - -[42] _Foster_, p. 108. - -[43] Oct. 20th, 1711. The last use I have observed of this word is in a -letter of Carlyle's, Nov. 7th, 1824. "Strange pilgarlic-looking figures." -Froude's _Life of Carlyle_, i. 247. - -[44] Lord Orrery instructs us to pronounce this name Vanummery. - -[45] This simply repeats what he says in his first published letters about -his flirtations at Leicester. - -[46] The passage which contains this line was said by Orrery to cast an -unmanly insinuation against Vanessa's virtue. As the accusation has been -repeated, it is perhaps right to say that one fact sufficiently disproves -its possibility. The poem was intended for Vanessa alone; and would never -have appeared had it not been published after her death by her own -direction. - -[47] Compare Pope's _Eloisa_ to _Abelard_ which appeared in 1717. If -Vanessa had read it, she might almost be suspected of borrowing; but her -phrases seem to be too genuine to justify the hypothesis. - -[48] Scott appropriately quotes Hotspur. The phrase is apparently a hint -at Swift's usual recipe of exercise. - -[49] I cannot here discuss the evidence. The original statements are in -_Orrery_, p. 22 &c.; _Delany_, p. 52; _Dean Swift_, p. 93; _Sheridan_, p. -282; _Monck Berkeley_, p. xxxvi. Scott accepted the marriage, and the -evidence upon which he relied was criticized by Monck Mason, p. 297, &c. -Monck Mason makes some good points, and especially diminishes the value of -the testimony of Bishop Berkeley, showing by dates that he could not have -heard the story, as his grandson affirms, from Bishop Ashe, who is said to -have performed the ceremony. It probably came, however, from Berkeley, -who, we may add, was tutor to Ashe's son, and had special reasons for -interest in the story. On the whole, the argument for the marriage comes -to this: that it was commonly reported by the end of Swift's life, that it -was certainly believed by his intimate friend Delany, in all probability -by the elder Sheridan and by Mrs. Whiteway. Mrs. Sican, who told the story -to Sheridan, seems also to be a good witness. On the other hand, Dr. Lyon, -a clergyman who was one of Swift's guardians in his imbecility, says that -it was denied by Mrs. Dingley and by Mrs. Brent, Swift's old housekeeper, -and by Stella's executors. The evidence seems to me very indecisive. Much -of it may be dismissed as mere gossip, but a certain probability remains. - -[50] _Monck Mason_, p. 310, note. - -[51] This is Sheridan's story. Orrery speaks of the letter as written to -Swift himself. - -[52] Scott heard this from Mrs. Whiteway's grandson. Sheridan tells the -story as though Stella had begged for publicity, and Swift cruelly -refused. Delany's statement (p. 56), which agrees with Mrs. Whiteway's, -appears to be on good authority, and, if true, proves the reality of the -marriage. - -[53] Besides Scott's remarks (see v. of his life) see Orrery, _Letter_ 10; -_Deane Swift_, p. 93, _Sheridan_, p. 297. - -[54] _Letter to Pope_, July 16th, 1728. - -[55] _Sheridan_, p. 23. - -[56] _Brain_ for Jan., 1882. - -[57] _Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life._ - -[58] Letter to Pope, July 13th, 1737. - -[59] _Catholic Reasons for Repealing the Test._ - -[60] _Letters on Sacramental Test in 1738._ - -[61] To Sir Charles Wigan, July, 1732. - -[62] To Lord Peterborough, April 21st, 1726. - -[63] The ton of bronze, I am informed, is coined into 108,000 pence, that -is 450_l._ The metal is worth about 74_l._ - -[64] Simon, in his work on the Irish coinage, makes the profit 60,000_l._; -but he reckons the copper at 1_s._ a lb., whereas from the Report of the -Privy Council it would seem to be properly 1_s._ 6_d._ a lb. Swift and -most later writers say 108,000_l._, but the right sum is 100,800_l._ 360 -tons coined into 2_s._ 6_d._ a lb. - -[65] Monck Mason says only 300_l._ a year, but this is the sum mentioned -in the Report and by Swift. - -[66] Letter I. - -[67] Letter II. - -[68] See for example Lord Stanhope's account. For the other view see Mr. -Lecky's _History of the Eighteenth Century_, and Mr. Froude's _English in -Ireland_. - -[69] Letter IV. - -[70] "On the words Brother Protestants, &c." - -[71] To Lord Stafford, Nov. 26, 1725. - -[72] _Maxims Controuled in Ireland._ - -[73] _Delany_, p. 148. - -[74] It is in the Forster library, and, I believe, unpublished, in answer -to Arbuthnot's letter mentioned in the text. - -[75] Letter to Pope, Sept. 29th, 1725. - -[76] Letter to Sheridan, Sept. 11th, 1725. - -[77] _Lectures on the English Poets._ - -[78] To Bolingbroke, May, 1719. - -[79] To Pope and Gay, Oct. 15th, 1726. - -[80] _Delany_, p. 144. - -[81] Bishop of Meath, May 22nd, 1719. - -[82] To Bishop of Clogher, July, 1733. - -[83] To Carteret, May 10th, 1728. - -[84] Substance of a speech to the Mayor of Dublin. Franklin left a sum of -money to be employed in a similar way. - -[85] See also the curious letters from Mrs. Pilkington in Richardson's -Correspondence. - -[86] Or she would hardly have written the _Panegyric_. - - - - -Now Publishing, in Crown 8vo, price 2_s._ 6_d._ each. - -ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. - -Edited by JOHN MORLEY. - -"Enjoyable and excellent little books."--_Academy._ - -"This admirable series."--_British Quarterly Review._ - -"These excellent biographies should be made class-books for -schools."--_Westminster Review._ - - - JOHNSON. - By LESLIE STEPHEN. - - SCOTT. - By R. H. HUTTON. - - GIBBON. - By J. C. MORISON. - - SHELLEY. - By J. A. SYMONDS. - - HUME. - By PROFESSOR HUXLEY, F.R.S. - - GOLDSMITH. - By WILLIAM BLACK. - - DEFOE. - By W. MINTO. - - BURNS. - By Principal SHAIRP. - - SPENSER. - By R. W. 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They are intended further to show how such - legislation arose, and (without going into minute historical or - antiquarian details) to show how it has been the outcome of our - history, how circumstances have led up to it, and what is its - significance as affecting the relation between the individual and the - state. - -_The following are the titles of the volumes_:-- - -1. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT. H. D. TRAILL, D.C.L., late Fellow of St. John's -College, Oxford. [_Ready._ - -2. THE ELECTORATE AND THE LEGISLATURE. SPENCER WALPOLE, Author of "The -History of England from 1815." [_Ready._ - -3. LOCAL GOVERNMENT. M. D. CHALMERS. [_Ready._ - -4. JUSTICE AND POLICE. F. POLLOCK, late Fellow of Trinity College, -Cambridge. - -5. THE NATIONAL BUDGET: THE NATIONAL DEBT, TAXES AND RATES. A. J. WILSON. -[_Ready._ - -6. THE STATE AND EDUCATION. HENRY CRAIK, M.A. - -7. THE POOR LAW. Rev. T. W. FOWLE. [_Ready._ - -8. THE STATE IN ITS RELATION TO TRADE. T. H. FARRER. [_Ready._ - -9. THE STATE IN RELATION TO LABOUR. W. STANLEY JEVONS, LL.D., M.A., F.R.S. -[_Ready._ - -10. THE STATE AND THE LAND. F. POLLOCK, late Fellow of Trinity College, -Cambridge. [_In the press._ - -11. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. Hon. A. D. ELLIOT, M.P. [_Ready._ - -12. FOREIGN RELATIONS. SPENCER WALPOLE, Author of "The History of England -from 1815." [_Ready._ - -13. (1) INDIA. J. S. COTTON, late Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. - -(2) COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES. E. J. PAYNE, Fellow of University College, -Oxford. 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