AN account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence
and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid
before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be
expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long since
communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations
with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment.
Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be written by
himself, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin
on St. Andrew’s day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by
Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman who was
minister of a parish in Herefordshire. During his life the place of his
birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the
Irish; but would occasionally call himself an Englishman. The question
may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in which he delighted
to involve it.
Whatever was his birth, his education was Irish. He was sent at the age
of six to the school at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year (1682) was
admitted into the University of Dublin. In his academical studies he was
either not diligent or not happy. It must disappoint every reader’s
expectation, that, when at the usual time he claimed the Bachelorship of
Arts, he was found by the examiners too conspicuously deficient for
regular admission, and obtained his degree at last by _special favour_; a
term used in that university to denote want of merit.
Of this disgrace it may be easily supposed that he was much ashamed, and
shame had its proper effect in producing reformation. He resolved from
that time to study eight hours a day, and continued his industry for
seven years, with what improvement is sufficiently known. This part of
his story well deserves to be remembered; it may afford useful admonition
and powerful encouragement to men whose abilities have been made for a
time useless by their passions or pleasures, and who having lost one part
of life in idleness, are tempted to throw away the remainder in despair.
In this course of daily application he continued three years longer at
Dublin; and in this time, if the observation and memory of an old
companion may be trusted, he drew the first sketch of his “Tale of a
Tub.”
When he was about one-and-twenty (1688), being by the death of Godwin
Swift, his uncle, who had supported him, left without subsistence, he
went to consult his mother, who then lived at Leicester, about the future
course of his life; and by her direction solicited the advice and
patronage of Sir William Temple, who had married one of Mrs. Swift’s
relations, and whose father Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls in
Ireland, had lived in great familiarity of friendship with Godwin Swift,
by whom Jonathan had been to that time maintained.
Temple received with sufficient kindness the nephew of his father’s
friend, with whom he was, when they conversed together, so much pleased,
that he detained him two years in his house. Here he became known to King
William, who sometimes visited Temple, when he was disabled by the gout,
and, being attended by Swift in the garden, showed him how to cut
asparagus in the Dutch way. King William’s notions were all military; and
he expressed his kindness to Swift by offering to make him a captain of
horse.
When Temple removed to Moor Park, he took Swift with him; and when he was
consulted by the Earl of Portland about the expedience of complying with
a bill then depending for making parliaments triennial, against which
King William was strongly prejudiced, after having in vain tried to show
the earl that the proposal involved nothing dangerous to royal power, he
sent Swift for the same purpose to the king. Swift, who probably was
proud of his employment, and went with all the confidence of a young man,
found his arguments, and his art of displaying them, made totally
ineffectual by the predetermination of the king; and used to mention this
disappointment as his first antidote against vanity. Before he left
Ireland he contracted a disorder, as he thought, by eating too much
fruit. The original of diseases is commonly obscure. Almost everybody
eats as much fruit as he can get, without any great inconvenience. The
disease of Swift was giddiness with deafness, which attacked him from
time to time, began very early, pursued him through life, and at last
sent him to the grave, deprived of reason. Being much oppressed at Moor
Park by this grievous malady, he was advised to try his native air, and
went to Ireland; but finding no benefit, returned to Sir William, at
whose house he continued his studies, and is known to have read, among
other books, Cyprian and Irenæus. He thought exercise of great necessity,
and used to run half a mile up and down a hill every two hours.
It is easy to imagine that the mode in which his first degree was
conferred left him no great fondness for the University of Dublin, and
therefore he resolved to become a Master of Arts at Oxford. In the
testimonial which he produced the words of disgrace were omitted; and he
took his Master’s degree (July 5, 1692) with such reception and regard as
fully contented him.
While he lived with Temple, he used to pay his mother at Leicester a
yearly visit. He travelled on foot, unless some violence of weather drove
him into a waggon; and at night he would go to a penny lodging, where he
purchased clean sheets for sixpence. This practice Lord Orrery imputes to
his innate love of grossness and vulgarity: some may ascribe it to his
desire of surveying human life through all its varieties: and others,
perhaps with equal probability, to a passion which seems to have been
deeply fixed in his heart, the love of a shilling. In time he began to
think that his attendance at Moor Park deserved some other recompense
than the pleasure, however mingled with improvement, of Temple’s
conversation; and grew so impatient, that (1694) he went away in
discontent. Temple, conscious of having given reason for complaint, is
said to have made him deputy Master of the Rolls in Ireland; which,
according to his kinsman’s account, was an office which he knew him not
able to discharge. Swift therefore resolved to enter into the Church, in
which he had at first no higher hopes than of the chaplainship to the
Factory at Lisbon; but being recommended to Lord Capel, he obtained the
prebend of Kilroot in Connor, of about a hundred pounds a year. But the
infirmities of Temple made a companion like Swift so necessary, that he
invited him back, with a promise to procure him English preferment in
exchange for the prebend, which he desired him to resign. With this
request Swift complied, having perhaps equally repented their separation,
and they lived on together with mutual satisfaction; and, in the four
years that passed between his return and Temple’s death, it is probable
that he wrote the “Tale of a Tub,” and the “Battle of the Books.”
Swift began early to think, or to hope, that he was a poet, and wrote
Pindaric Odes to Temple, to the king, and to the Athenian Society, a knot
of obscure men, who published a periodical pamphlet of answers to
questions, sent, or supposed to be sent, by letters. I have been told
that Dryden, having perused these verses, said, “Cousin Swift, you will
never be a poet;” and that this denunciation was the motive of Swift’s
perpetual malevolence to Dryden. In 1699 Temple died, and left a legacy
with his manuscripts to Swift, for whom he had obtained, from King
William, a promise of the first prebend that should be vacant at
Westminster or Canterbury. That this promise might not be forgotten,
Swift dedicated to the king the posthumous works with which he was
intrusted; but neither the dedication, nor tenderness for the man whom he
once had treated with confidence and fondness, revived in King William
the remembrance of his promise. Swift awhile attended the Court; but soon
found his solicitations hopeless. He was then invited by the Earl of
Berkeley to accompany him into Ireland, as his private secretary; but,
after having done the business till their arrival at Dublin, he then
found that one Bush had persuaded the earl that a clergyman was not a
proper secretary, and had obtained the office for himself. In a man like
Swift, such circumvention and inconstancy must have excited violent
indignation. But he had yet more to suffer. Lord Berkeley had the
disposal of the deanery of Derry, and Swift expected to obtain it; but by
the secretary’s influence, supposed to have been secured by a bribe, it
was bestowed on somebody else; and Swift was dismissed with the livings
of Laracor and Rathbeggin in the diocese of Meath, which together did not
equal half the value of the deanery. At Laracor he increased the
parochial duty by reading prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and
performed all the offices of his profession with great decency and
exactness.
Soon after his settlement at Laracor, he invited to Ireland the
unfortunate Stella, a young woman whose name was Johnson, the daughter of
the steward of Sir William Temple, who, in consideration of her father’s
virtues, left her a thousand pounds. With her came Mrs. Dingley, whose
whole fortune was twenty-seven pounds a year for her life. With these
ladies he passed his hours of relaxation, and to them he opened his
bosom; but they never resided in the same house, nor did he see either
without a witness. They lived at the Parsonage when Swift was away, and,
when he returned, removed to a lodging, or to the house of a neighbouring
clergyman.
Swift was not one of those minds which amaze the world with early
pregnancy: his first work, except his few poetical Essays, was the
“Dissensions in Athens and Rome,” published (1701) in his thirty-fourth
year. After its appearance, paying a visit to some bishop, he heard
mention made of the new pamphlet that Burnet had written, replete with
political knowledge. When he seemed to doubt Burnet’s right to the work,
he was told by the bishop that he was “a young man,” and still persisting
to doubt, that he was “a very positive young man.”
Three years afterwards (1704) was published “The Tale of a Tub;” of this
book charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by a man
of a peculiar character without ill intention; but it is certainly of
dangerous example. That Swift was its author, though it be universally
believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any
evidence; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not deny it
when Archbishop Sharp and the Duchess of Somerset, by showing it to the
queen, debarred him from a bishopric. When this wild work first raised
the attention of the public, Sacheverell, meeting Smalridge, tried to
flatter him by seeming to think him the author, but Smalridge answered
with indignation, “Not all that you and I have in the world, nor all that
ever we shall have, should hire me to write the ‘Tale of a Tub.’”
The digression relating to Wotton and Bentley must be confessed to
discover want of knowledge or want of integrity; he did not understand
the two controversies, or he willingly misrepresented them. But Wit can
stand its ground against Truth only a little while. The honours due to
Learning have been justly distributed by the decision of posterity.
“The Battle of the Books” is so like the “_Combat des Livres_,” which the
same question concerning the Ancients and Moderns had produced in France,
that the improbability of such a coincidence of thoughts without
communication, is not, in my opinion, balanced by the anonymous
protestation prefixed, in which all knowledge of the French book is
peremptorily disowned.
For some time after, Swift was probably employed in solitary study,
gaining the qualifications requisite for future eminence. How often he
visited England, and with what diligence he attended his parishes, I know
not. It was not till about four years afterwards that he became a
professed author; and then one year (1708) produced “The Sentiments of a
Church of England Man;” the ridicule of Astrology under the name of
“Bickerstaff;” the “Argument against abolishing Christianity;” and the
defence of the “Sacramental Test.”
“The Sentiments of a Church of England Man” is written with great
coolness, moderation, ease, and perspicuity. The “Argument against
abolishing Christianity” is a very happy and judicious irony. One passage
in it deserves to be selected:—
“If Christianity were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the
strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find
another subject so calculated, in all points, whereon to display their
abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of
from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly turned
upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would therefore never
be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject! We
are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would
take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left. Who would
ever have suspected Asgill for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the
inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them
with materials? What other subject, through all art or nature, could
have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with
readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and
distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been
employed on the side of religion, they would have immediately sunk into
silence and oblivion.”
The reasonableness of a _Test_ is not hard to be proved; but perhaps it
must be allowed that the proper test has not been chosen. The attention
paid to the papers published under the name of “Bickerstaff,” induced
Steele, when he projected the _Tatler_, to assume an appellation which
had already gained possession of the reader’s notice.
In the year following he wrote a “Project for the Advancement of
Religion,” addressed to Lady Berkeley, by whose kindness it is not
unlikely that he was advanced to his benefices. To this project, which is
formed with great purity of intention, and displayed with sprightliness
and elegance, it can only be objected, that, like many projects, it is,
if not generally impracticable, yet evidently hopeless, as it supposes
more zeal, concord, and perseverance than a view of mankind gives reason
for expecting. He wrote likewise this year a “Vindication of
Bickerstaff,” and an explanation of an “Ancient Prophecy,” part written
after the facts, and the rest never completed, but well planned to excite
amazement.
Soon after began the busy and important part of Swift’s life. He was
employed (1710) by the Primate of Ireland to solicit the queen for a
remission of the First Fruits and Twentieth Parts to the Irish Clergy.
With this purpose he had recourse to Mr. Harley, to whom he was mentioned
as a man neglected and oppressed by the last Ministry, because he had
refused to co-operate with some of their schemes. What he had refused has
never been told; what he had suffered was, I suppose, the exclusion from
a bishopric by the remonstrances of Sharp, whom he describes as “the
harmless tool of others’ hate,” and whom he represents as afterwards
“suing for pardon.”
Harley’s designs and situation were such as made him glad of an auxiliary
so well qualified for his service: he therefore soon admitted him to
familiarity, whether ever to confidence some have made a doubt; but it
would have been difficult to excite his zeal without persuading him that
he was trusted, and not very easy to delude him by false persuasions. He
was certainly admitted to those meetings in which the first hints and
original plan of action are supposed to have been formed; and was one of
the sixteen ministers, or agents of the Ministry, who met weekly at each
other’s houses, and were united by the name of “Brother.” Being not
immediately considered as an obdurate Tory, he conversed indiscriminately
with all the wits, and was yet the friend of Steele; who, in the
_Tatler_, which began in April, 1709, confesses the advantage of his
conversation, and mentions something contributed by him to his paper. But
he was now emerging into political controversy; for the year 1710
produced the _Examiner_, of which Swift wrote thirty-three papers. In
argument he may be allowed to have the advantage: for where a wide system
of conduct, and the whole of a public character, is laid open to inquiry,
the accuser, having the choice of facts, must be very unskilful if he
does not prevail: but with regard to wit, I am afraid none of Swift’s
papers will be found equal to those by which Addison opposed him.
He wrote in the year 1711 a “Letter to the October Club,” a number of
Tory gentlemen sent from the country to Parliament, who formed themselves
into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to animate the
zeal and raise the expectations of each other. They thought, with great
reason, that the Ministers were losing opportunities; that sufficient use
was not made of the ardour of the nation; they called loudly for more
changes, and stronger efforts; and demanded the punishment of part and
the dismission of the rest, of those whom they considered as public
robbers. Their eagerness was not gratified by the queen, or by Harley.
The queen was probably slow because she was afraid; and Harley was slow
because he was doubtful; he was a Tory only by necessity, or for
convenience; and, when he had power in his hands, had no settled purpose
for which he should employ it; forced to gratify to a certain degree the
Tories who supported him, but unwilling to make his reconcilement to the
Whigs utterly desperate, he corresponded at once with the two expectants
of the Crown, and kept, as has been observed, the succession
undetermined. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing; and, with the fate
of a double dealer, at last he lost his power, but kept his enemies.
Swift seems to have concurred in opinion with the “October Club;” but it
was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he
stimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows not
whither to go, is in no haste to move. Harley, who was perhaps not quick
by nature, became yet more slow by irresolution; and was content to hear
that dilatoriness lamented as natural, which he applauded in himself as
politic. Without the Tories, however, nothing could be done; and, as they
were not to be gratified, they must be appeased; and the conduct of the
Minister, if it could not be vindicated, was to be plausibly excused.
Early in the next year he published a “Proposal for Correcting,
Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue,” in a Letter to the Earl
of Oxford; written without much knowledge of the general nature of
language, and without any accurate inquiry into the history of other
tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience,
he thinks attainable, he proposes to secure by instituting an academy;
the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would
have been proud, to disobey, and which, being renewed by successive
elections, would in a short time have differed from itself.
Swift now attained the zenith of his political importance: he published
(1712) the “Conduct of the Allies,” ten days before the Parliament
assembled. The purpose was to persuade the nation to a peace; and never
had any writer more success. The people, who had been amused with
bonfires and triumphal processions, and looked with idolatry on the
General and his friends, who, as they thought, had made England the
arbitress of nations, were confounded between shame and rage, when they
found that “mines had been exhausted, and millions destroyed,” to secure
the Dutch or aggrandise the Emperor, without any advantage to ourselves;
that we had been bribing our neighbours to fight their own quarrel; and
that amongst our enemies we might number our allies. That is now no
longer doubted, of which the nation was then first informed, that the war
was unnecessarily protracted to fill the pockets of Marlborough; and that
it would have been continued without end, if he could have continued his
annual plunder. But Swift, I suppose, did not yet know what he has since
written, that a commission was drawn which would have appointed him
General for life, had it not become ineffectual by the resolution of Lord
Cowper, who refused the seal.
“Whatever is received,” say the schools, “is received in proportion to
the recipient.” The power of a political treatise depends much upon the
disposition of the people; the nation was then combustible, and a spark
set it on fire. It is boasted, that between November and January eleven
thousand were sold: a great number at that time, when we were not yet a
nation of readers. To its propagation certainly no agency of power or
influence was wanting. It furnished arguments for conversation, speeches
for debate, and materials for parliamentary resolutions. Yet, surely,
whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will
confess that its efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers;
that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little assistance
from the hand that produced them.
This year (1712) he published his “Reflections on the Barrier Treaty,”
which carries on the design of his “Conduct of the Allies,” and shows how
little regard in that negotiation had been shown to the interest of
England, and how much of the conquered country had been demanded by the
Dutch. This was followed by “Remarks on the Bishop of Sarum’s
Introduction to his third Volume of the History of the Reformation;” a
pamphlet which Burnet published as an alarm, to warn the nation of the
approach of Popery. Swift, who seems to have disliked the bishop with
something more than political aversion, treats him like one whom he is
glad of an opportunity to insult.
Swift, being now the declared favourite and supposed confidant of the
Tory Ministry, was treated by all that depended on the Court with the
respect which dependents know how to pay. He soon began to feel part of
the misery of greatness; he that could say that he knew him, considered
himself as having fortune in his power. Commissions, solicitations,
remonstrances crowded about him; he was expected to do every man’s
business; to procure employment for one, and to retain it for another. In
assisting those who addressed him, he represents himself as sufficiently
diligent; and desires to have others believe what he probably believed
himself, that by his interposition many Whigs of merit, and among them
Addison and Congreve, were continued in their places. But every man of
known influence has so many petitions which he cannot grant, that he must
necessarily offend more than he gratifies, because the preference given
to one affords all the rest reason for complaint. “When I give away a
place,” said Lewis XIV., “I make a hundred discontented, and one
ungrateful.”
Much has been said of the equality and independence which he preserved in
his conversation with the Ministers; of the frankness of his
remonstrances, and the familiarity of his friendship. In accounts of this
kind a few single incidents are set against the general tenour of
behaviour. No man, however, can pay a more servile tribute to the great,
than by suffering his liberty in their presence to aggrandise him in his
own esteem. Between different ranks of the community there is necessarily
some distance; he who is called by his superior to pass the interval, may
properly accept the invitation; but petulance and obtrusion are rarely
produced by magnanimity; nor have often any nobler cause than the pride
of importance, and the malice of inferiority. He who knows himself
necessary may set, while that necessity lasts, a high value upon himself;
as, in a lower condition, a servant eminently skilful may be saucy; but
he is saucy only because he is servile. Swift appears to have preserved
the kindness of the great when they wanted him no longer; and therefore
it must be allowed, that the childish freedom, to which he seems enough
inclined, was overpowered by his better qualities. His disinterestedness
has likewise been mentioned; a strain of heroism which would have been in
his condition romantic and superfluous. Ecclesiastical benefices, when
they become vacant, must be given away; and the friends of power may, if
there be no inherent disqualification, reasonably expect them. Swift
accepted (1713) the deanery of St. Patrick, the best preferment that his
friends could venture to give him. That Ministry was in a great degree
supported by the clergy, who were not yet reconciled to the author of the
“Tale of a Tub,” and would not without much discontent and indignation
have borne to see him installed in an English cathedral. He refused,
indeed, fifty pounds from Lord Oxford; but he accepted afterwards a
draught of a thousand upon the Exchequer, which was intercepted by the
queen’s death, and which he resigned, as he says himself, “_multa
gemens_, with many a groan.” In the midst of his power and his politics,
he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with
Ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs.
Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was
interesting, and no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal
trifles were properly exposed to eyes which had never received any
pleasure from the presence of the Dean may be reasonably doubted: they
have, however, some odd attraction; the reader, finding frequent mention
of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope
of information; and as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is
disappointed he can hardly complain. It is easy to perceive, from every
page, that though ambition pressed Swift into a life of bustle, the wish
for a life of ease was always returning. He went to take possession of
his deanery as soon as he had obtained it; but he was not suffered to
stay in Ireland more than a fortnight before he was recalled to England,
that he might reconcile Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke, who began to
look on one another with malevolence, which every day increased, and
which Bolingbroke appeared to retain in his last years.
Swift contrived an interview, from which they both departed discontented;
he procured a second, which only convinced him that the feud was
irreconcilable; he told them his opinion, that all was lost. This
denunciation was contradicted by Oxford; but Bolingbroke whispered that
he was right. Before this violent dissension had shattered the Ministry,
Swift had published, in the beginning of the year (1714), “The Public
Spirit of the Whigs,” in answer to “The Crisis,” a pamphlet for which
Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Swift was now so far
alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to decency, and
therefore treats him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes with
abhorrence. In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms so
provoking to that irritable nation, that resolving “not to be offended
with impunity,” the Scotch lords in a body demanded an audience of the
queen, and solicited reparation. A proclamation was issued, in which
three hundred pounds were offered for the discovery of the author. From
this storm he was, as he relates, “secured by a sleight;” of what kind,
or by whose prudence, is not known; and such was the increase of his
reputation, that the Scottish nation “applied again that he would be
their friend.” He was become so formidable to the Whigs, that his
familiarity with the Ministers was clamoured at in Parliament,
particularly by two men, afterwards of great note, Aislabie and Walpole.
But, by the disunion of his great friends, his importance and designs
were now at an end; and seeing his services at last useless, he retired
about June (1714) into Berkshire, where, in the house of a friend, he
wrote what was then suppressed, but has since appeared under the title of
“Free Thoughts on the present State of Affairs.” While he was waiting in
this retirement for events which time or chance might bring to pass, the
death of the Queen broke down at once the whole system of Tory politics;
and nothing remained but to withdraw from the implacability of triumphant
Whiggism, and shelter himself in unenvied obscurity.
The accounts of his reception in Ireland, given by Lord Orrery and Dr.
Delany, are so different, that the credit of the writers, both
undoubtedly veracious, cannot be saved, but by supposing, what I think is
true, that they speak of different times. When Delany says, that he was
received with respect, he means for the first fortnight, when he came to
take legal possession; and when Lord Orrery tells that he was pelted by
the populace, he is to be understood of the time when, after the Queen’s
death, he became a settled resident.
The Archbishop of Dublin gave him at first some disturbance in the
exercise of his jurisdiction; but it was soon discovered, that between
prudence and integrity, he was seldom in the wrong; and that, when he was
right, his spirit did not easily yield to opposition.
Having so lately quitted the tumults of a party, and the intrigues of a
court, they still kept his thoughts in agitation, as the sea fluctuates a
while when the storm has ceased. He therefore filled his hours with some
historical attempts, relating to the “Change of the Ministers,” and “The
Conduct of the Ministry.” He likewise is said to have written a “History
of the Four last Years of Queen Anne,” which he began in her lifetime,
and afterwards laboured with great attention, but never published. It was
after his death in the hands of Lord Orrery and Dr. King. A book under
that title was published with Swift’s name by Dr. Lucas; of which I can
only say, that it seemed by no means to correspond with the notions that
I had formed of it, from a conversation which I once heard between the
Earl of Orrery and old Mr. Lewis.
Swift now, much against his will, commenced Irishman for life, and was to
contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country where he
considered himself as in a state of exile. It seems that his first
recourse was to piety. The thoughts of death rushed upon him at this time
with such incessant importunity, that they took possession of his mind,
when he first waked, for many years together. He opened his house by a
public table two days a week, and found his entertainments gradually
frequented by more and more visitants of learning among the men, and of
elegance among the women. Mrs. Johnson had left the country, and lived in
lodgings not far from the deanery. On his public days she regulated the
table, but appeared at it as a mere guest, like other ladies. On other
days he often dined, at a stated price, with Mr. Worral, a clergyman of
his cathedral, whose house was recommended by the peculiar neatness and
pleasantry of his wife. To this frugal mode of living, he was first
disposed by care to pay some debts which he had contracted, and he
continued it for the pleasure of accumulating money. His avarice,
however, was not suffered to obstruct the claims of his dignity; he was
served in plate, and used to say that he was the poorest gentleman in
Ireland that ate upon plate, and the richest that lived without a coach.
How he spent the rest of his time, and how he employed his hours of
study, has been inquired with hopeless curiosity. For who can give an
account of another’s studies? Swift was not likely to admit any to his
privacies, or to impart a minute account of his business or his leisure.
Soon after (1716), in his forty-ninth year, he was privately married to
Mrs. Johnson, by Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, as Dr. Madden told me, in
the garden. The marriage made no change in their mode of life; they lived
in different houses, as before; nor did she ever lodge in the deanery but
when Swift was seized with a fit of giddiness. “It would be difficult,”
says Lord Orrery, “to prove that they were ever afterwards together
without a third person.”
The Dean of St. Patrick’s lived in a private manner, known and regarded
only by his friends; till, about the year 1720, he, by a pamphlet,
recommended to the Irish the use, and consequently the improvement, of
their manufactures. For a man to use the productions of his own labour is
surely a natural right, and to like best what he makes himself is a
natural passion. But to excite this passion, and enforce this right,
appeared so criminal to those who had an interest in the English trade,
that the printer was imprisoned; and, as Hawkesworth justly observes, the
attention of the public being, by this outrageous resentment, turned upon
the proposal, the author was by consequence made popular.
In 1723 died Mrs. Van Homrigh, a woman made unhappy by her admiration of
wit, and ignominiously distinguished by the name of Vanessa, whose
conduct has been already sufficiently discussed, and whose history is too
well known to be minutely repeated. She was a young woman fond of
literature, whom Decanus, the dean, called _Cadenus_ by transposition of
the letters, took pleasure in directing and instructing: till, from being
proud of his praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift was then about
forty-seven, at an age when vanity is strongly excited by the amorous
attention of a young woman. If it be said that Swift should have checked
a passion which he never meant to gratify, recourse must be had to that
extenuation which he so much despised, “men are but men;” perhaps,
however, he did not at first know his own mind, and, as he represents
himself, was undetermined. For his admission of her courtship, and his
indulgence of her hopes after his marriage to Stella, no other honest
plea can be found than that he delayed a disagreeable discovery from time
to time, dreading the immediate bursts of distress, and watching for a
favourable moment. She thought herself neglected, and died of
disappointment, having ordered, by her will, the poem to be published, in
which Cadenus had proclaimed her excellence and confessed his love. The
effect of the publication upon the Dean and Stella is thus related by
Delany:—
“I have good reason to believe that they both were greatly shocked
and distressed (though it may be differently) upon this occasion. The
Dean made a tour to the south of Ireland for about two months at this
time, to dissipate his thoughts and give place to obloquy. And Stella
retired (upon the earnest invitation of the owner) to the house of a
cheerful, generous, good-natured friend of the Dean’s, whom she
always much loved and honoured. There my informer often saw her, and,
I have reason to believe, used his utmost endeavours to relieve,
support, and amuse her, in this sad situation. One little incident he
told me of on that occasion I think I shall never forget. As his
friend was an hospitable, open-hearted man, well beloved and largely
acquainted, it happened one day that some gentlemen dropped in to
dinner, who were strangers to Stella’s situation; and as the poem of
_Cadenus and Vanessa_ was then the general topic of conversation, one
of them said, ‘Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman
that could inspire the Dean to write so finely upon her.’ Mrs.
Johnson smiled, and answered, ‘that she thought that point not quite
so clear; for it was well known that the Dean could write finely upon
a broomstick.’”
The great acquisition of esteem and influence was made by the “Drapier’s
Letters,” in 1724. One Wood, of Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, a man
enterprising and rapacious, had, as is said, by a present to the Duchess
of Munster, obtained a patent, empowering him to coin one hundred and
eighty thousand pounds of halfpence and farthings for the kingdom of
Ireland, in which there was a very inconvenient and embarrassing scarcity
of copper coin, so that it was possible to run in debt upon the credit of
a piece of money; for the cook or keeper of an alehouse could not refuse
to supply a man that had silver in his hand, and the buyer would not
leave his money without change. The project was therefore plausible. The
scarcity, which was already great, Wood took care to make greater, by
agents who gathered up the old halfpence; and was about to turn his brass
into gold, by pouring the treasures of his new mint upon Ireland, when
Swift, finding that the metal was debased to an enormous degree, wrote
letters, under the name of _M. B. Drapier_, to show the folly of
receiving, and the mischief that must ensue by giving gold and silver for
coin worth perhaps not a third part of its nominal value. The nation was
alarmed; the new coin was universally refused, but the governors of
Ireland considered resistance to the king’s patent as highly criminal;
and one Whitshed, then Chief Justice, who had tried the printer of the
former pamphlet, and sent out the jury nine times, till by clamour and
menaces they were frightened into a special verdict, now presented the
Drapier, but could not prevail on the grand jury to find the bill.
Lord Carteret and the Privy Council published a proclamation, offering
three hundred pounds for discovering the author of the Fourth Letter.
Swift had concealed himself from his printers and trusted only his
butler, who transcribed the paper. The man, immediately after the
appearance of the proclamation, strolled from the house, and stayed out
all night, and part of the next day. There was reason enough to fear that
he had betrayed his master for the reward; but he came home, and the Dean
ordered him to put off his livery, and leave the house; “for,” says he,
“I know that my life is in your power, and I will not bear, out of fear,
either your insolence or negligence.” The man excused his fault with
great submission, and begged that he might be confined in the house while
it was in his power to endanger the master; but the Dean resolutely
turned him out, without taking further notice of him, till the term of
the information had expired, and then received him again. Soon afterwards
he ordered him and the rest of his servants into his presence, without
telling his intentions, and bade them take notice that their
fellow-servant was no longer Robert the butler, but that his integrity
had made him Mr. Blakeney, verger of St. Patrick’s, an officer whose
income was between thirty and forty pounds a year; yet he still continued
for some years to serve his old master as his butler.
Swift was known from this time by the appellation of _The Dean_. He was
honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of
Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and
duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth or
higher station. He was from this important year the oracle of the
traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and
courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was
necessary. The _Drapier_ was a sign; the _Drapier_ was a health; and
which way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of
the nation’s gratitude to the _Drapier_.
The benefit was indeed great; he had rescued Ireland from a very
oppressive and predatory invasion, and the popularity which he had gained
he was diligent to keep, by appearing forward and zealous on every
occasion where the public interest was supposed to be involved. Nor did
he much scruple to boast his influence; for when, upon some attempts to
regulate the coin, Archbishop Boulter, then one of the justices, accused
him of exasperating the people, he exculpated himself by saying, “If I
had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to pieces.” But the
pleasure of popularity was soon interrupted by domestic misery. Mrs.
Johnson, whose conversation was to him the great softener of the ills of
life, began in the year of the _Drapier’s_ triumph to decline, and two
years afterwards was so wasted with sickness that her recovery was
considered as hopeless. Swift was then in England, and had been invited
by Lord Bolingbroke to pass the winter with him in France; but this call
of calamity hastened him to Ireland, where perhaps his presence
contributed to restore her to imperfect and tottering health. He was now
so much at ease, that (1727) he returned to England, where he collected
three volumes of Miscellanies in conjunction with Pope, who prefixed a
querulous and apologetical Preface.
This important year sent likewise into the world “Gulliver’s Travels,” a
production so new and strange, that it filled the reader with a mingled
emotion of merriment and amazement. It was received with such avidity,
that the price of the first edition was raised before the second could be
made; it was read by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate.
Criticism was for a while lost in wonder; no rules of judgment were
applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and regularity. But
when distinctions came to be made, the part which gave the least pleasure
was that which describes the Flying Island, and that which gave most
disgust must be the history of Houyhnhnms.
While Swift was enjoying the reputation of his new work, the news of the
king’s death arrived, and he kissed the hands of the new king and queen
three days after their accession. By the queen, when she was princess, he
had been treated with some distinction, and was well received by her in
her exaltation; but whether she gave hopes which she never took care to
satisfy, or he formed expectations which she never meant to raise, the
event was that he always afterwards thought on her with malevolence, and
particularly charged her with breaking her promise of some medals which
she engaged to send him. I know not whether she had not, in her turn,
some reason for complaint. A letter was sent her, not so much entreating,
as requiring her patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious Irishwoman, who
was then begging subscriptions for her Poems. To this letter was
subscribed the name of Swift, and it has all the appearance of his
diction and sentiments; but it was not written in his hand, and had some
little improprieties. When he was charged with this letter, he laid hold
of the inaccuracies, and urged the improbability of the accusation, but
never denied it: he shuffles between cowardice and veracity, and talks
big when he says nothing. He seems desirous enough of recommencing
courtier, and endeavoured to gain the kindness of Mrs. Howard,
remembering what Mrs. Masham had performed in former times; but his
flatteries were, like those of other wits, unsuccessful; the lady either
wanted power, or had no ambition of poetical immortality. He was seized
not long afterwards by a fit of giddiness, and again heard of the
sickness and danger of Mrs. Johnson. He then left the house of Pope, as
it seems, with very little ceremony, finding “that two sick friends
cannot live together;” and did not write to him till he found himself at
Chester. He turned to a home of sorrow: poor Stella was sinking into the
grave, and, after a languishing decay of about two months, died in her
forty-fourth year, on January 28, 1728. How much he wished her life his
papers show; nor can it be doubted that he dreaded the death of her whom
he loved most, aggravated by the consciousness that himself had hastened
it.
Beauty and the power of pleasing, the greatest external advantages that
woman can desire or possess, were fatal to the unfortunate Stella. The
man whom she had the misfortune to love was, as Delany observes, fond of
singularity, and desirous to make a mode of happiness for himself,
different from the general course of things and order of Providence. From
the time of her arrival in Ireland he seems resolved to keep her in his
power, and therefore hindered a match sufficiently advantageous by
accumulating unreasonable demands, and prescribing conditions that could
not be performed. While she was at her own disposal he did not consider
his possession as secure; resentment, ambition, or caprice might separate
them: he was therefore resolved to make “assurance doubly sure,” and to
appropriate her by a private marriage, to which he had annexed the
expectation of all the pleasures of perfect friendship, without the
uneasiness of conjugal restraint. But with this state poor Stella was not
satisfied; she never was treated as a wife, and to the world she had the
appearance of a mistress. She lived sullenly on, in hope that in time he
would own and receive her; but the time did not come till the change of
his manners and depravation of his mind made her tell him, when he
offered to acknowledge her, that “it was too late.” She then gave up
herself to sorrowful resentment, and died under the tyranny of him by
whom she was in the highest degree loved and honoured. What were her
claims to this eccentric tenderness, by which the laws of nature were
violated to restrain her, curiosity will inquire; but how shall it be
gratified? Swift was a lover; his testimony may be suspected. Delany and
the Irish saw with Swift’s eyes, and therefore add little confirmation.
That she was virtuous, beautiful, and elegant, in a very high degree,
such admiration from such a lover makes it very probable: but she had not
much literature, for she could not spell her own language; and of her
wit, so loudly vaunted, the smart sayings which Swift himself has
collected afford no splendid specimen.
The reader of Swift’s “Letter to a Lady on her Marriage,” may be allowed
to doubt whether his opinion of female excellence ought implicitly to be
admitted; for, if his general thoughts on women were such as he exhibits,
a very little sense in a lady would enrapture, and a very little virtue
would astonish him. Stella’s supremacy, therefore, was perhaps only
local; she was great because her associates were little.
In some Remarks lately published on the Life of Swift, his marriage is
mentioned as fabulous, or doubtful; but, alas! poor Stella, as Dr. Madden
told me, related her melancholy story to Dr. Sheridan, when he attended
her as a clergyman to prepare her for death; and Delany mentions it not
with doubt, but only with regret. Swift never mentioned her without a
sigh. The rest of his life was spent in Ireland, in a country to which
not even power almost despotic, nor flattery almost idolatrous, could
reconcile him. He sometimes wished to visit England, but always found
some reason of delay. He tells Pope, in the decline of life, that he
hopes once more to see him; “but if not,” says he, “we must part as all
human beings have parted.”
After the death of Stella, his benevolence was contracted, and his
severity exasperated; he drove his acquaintance from his table, and
wondered why he was deserted. But he continued his attention to the
public, and wrote from time to time such directions, admonitions, or
censures, as the exigence of affairs, in his opinion, made proper; and
nothing fell from his pen in vain. In a short poem on the Presbyterians,
whom he always regarded with detestation, he bestowed one stricture upon
Bettesworth, a lawyer eminent for his insolence to the clergy, which,
from very considerable reputation, brought him into immediate and
universal contempt. Bettesworth, enraged at his disgrace and loss, went
to Swift, and demanded whether he was the author of that poem? “Mr.
Bettesworth,” answered he, “I was in my youth acquainted with great
lawyers, who, knowing my disposition to satire, advised me, that if any
scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, ‘Are you the
author of this paper?’ I should tell him that I was not the author; and
therefore, I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of these
lines.”
Bettesworth was so little satisfied with this account, that he publicly
professed his resolution of a violent and corporal revenge; but the
inhabitants of St. Patrick’s district embodied themselves in the Dean’s
defence. Bettesworth declared in Parliament that Swift had deprived him
of twelve hundred pounds a year.
Swift was popular awhile by another mode of beneficence. He set aside
some hundreds to be lent in small sums to the poor, from five shillings,
I think, to five pounds. He took no interest, and only required that, at
repayment, a small fee should be given to the accountant, but he required
that the day of promised payment should be exactly kept. A severe and
punctilious temper is ill qualified for transactions with the poor: the
day was often broken, and the loan was not repaid. This might have been
easily foreseen; but for this Swift had made no provision of patience or
pity. He ordered his debtors to be sued. A severe creditor has no popular
character; what then was likely to be said of him who employs the
catchpoll under the appearance of charity? The clamour against him was
loud, and the resentment of the populace outrageous; he was therefore
forced to drop his scheme, and own the folly of expecting punctuality
from the poor.
His asperity continually increasing, condemned him to solitude; and his
resentment of solitude sharpened his asperity. He was not, however,
totally deserted; some men of learning, and some women of elegance, often
visited him; and he wrote from time to time either verse or prose: of his
verses he willingly gave copies, and is supposed to have felt no
discontent when he saw them printed. His favourite maxim was “Vive la
bagatelle:” he thought trifles a necessary part of life, and perhaps
found them necessary to himself. It seems impossible to him to be idle,
and his disorders made it difficult or dangerous to be long seriously
studious, or laboriously diligent. The love of ease is always gaining
upon age, and he had one temptation to petty amusements peculiar to
himself; whatever he did, he was sure to hear applauded; and such was his
predominance over all that approached, that all their applauses were
probably sincere. He that is much flattered soon learns to flatter
himself; we are commonly taught our duty by fear or shame, and how can
they act upon the man who hears nothing but his own praises? As his
years increased, his fits of giddiness and deafness grew more frequent,
and his deafness made conversation difficult; they grew likewise more
severe, till in 1736, as he was writing a poem called “The Legion Club,”
he was seized with a fit so painful and so long continued, that he never
after thought it proper to attempt any work of thought or labour. He was
always careful of his money, and was therefore no liberal entertainer,
but was less frugal of his wine than of his meat. When his friends of
either sex came to him in expectation of a dinner, his custom was to give
every one a shilling, that they might please themselves with their
provision. At last his avarice grew too powerful for his kindness; he
would refuse a bottle of wine, and in Ireland no man visits where he
cannot drink. Having thus excluded conversation, and desisted from study,
he had neither business nor amusement; for, having by some ridiculous
resolution, or mad vow, determined never to wear spectacles, he could
make like little use of books in his latter years; his ideas, therefore,
being neither renovated by discourse, nor increased by reading, wore
gradually away, and left his mind vacant to the vexations of the hour,
till at last his anger was heightened into madness. He, however,
permitted one book to be published, which had been the production of
former years—“Polite Conversation,” which appeared in 1738. The
“Directions for Servants,” was printed soon after his death. These two
performances show a mind incessantly attentive, and, when it was not
employed upon great things, busy with minute occurrences. It is apparent
that he must have had the habit of noting whatever he observed; for such
a number of particulars could never have been assembled by the power of
recollection. He grew more violent, and his mental powers declined, till
(1741) it was found necessary that legal guardians should be appointed of
his person and fortune. He now lost distinction. His madness was
compounded of rage and fatuity. The last face that he knew was that of
Mrs. Whiteway; and her he ceased to know in a little time. His meat was
brought him cut into mouthfuls: but he would never touch it while the
servant stayed, and at last, after it had stood perhaps an hour, would
eat it walking; for he continued his old habit, and was on his feet ten
hours a day. Next year (1742) he had an inflammation in his left eye,
which swelled it to the size of an egg, with boils in other parts; he was
kept long waking with the pain, and was not easily restrained by five
attendants from tearing out his eye.
The tumour at last subsided; and a short interval of reason ensuing; in
which he knew his physician and his family, gave hopes of his recovery;
but in a few days he sank into a lethargic stupidity, motionless,
heedless, and speechless. But it is said that after a year of total
silence, when his housekeeper, on the 30th of November, told him that the
usual bonfires and illuminations were preparing to celebrate his
birthday, he answered, “It is all folly; they had better let it alone.”
It is remembered that he afterwards spoke now and then, or gave some
intimation of a meaning; but at last sank into a perfect silence, which
continued till about the end of October, 1744, when, in his
seventy-eighth year, he expired without a struggle.
When Swift is considered as an author, it is just to estimate his powers
by their effects. In the reign of Queen Anne he turned the stream of
popularity against the Whigs, and must be confessed to have dictated for
a time the political opinions of the English nation. In the succeeding
reign he delivered Ireland from plunder and oppression: and showed that
wit, confederated with truth, had such force as authority was unable to
resist. He said truly of himself, that Ireland “was his debtor.” It was
from the time when he first began to patronise the Irish, that they may
date their riches and prosperity. He taught them first to know their own
interest, their weight, and their strength, and gave them spirit to
assert that equality with their fellow-subjects to which they have ever
since been making vigorous advances, and to claim those rights which they
have at last established. Nor can they be charged with ingratitude to
their benefactor; for they reverenced him as a guardian, and obeyed him
as a dictator.
In his works he has given very different specimens both of sentiments and
expression. His “Tale of a Tub” has little resemblance to his other
pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of
images, and vivacity of diction, such as he afterwards never possessed,
or never exerted. It is of a mode so distinct and peculiar, that it must
be considered by itself; what is true of that, is not true of anything
else which he has written. In his other works is found an equable tenour
of easy language, which rather trickles than flows. His delight was in
simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is
not true; but his few metaphors seem to be received rather by necessity
than choice. He studied purity; and though perhaps all his strictures are
not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found; and whoever
depends on his authority may generally conclude himself safe. His
sentences are never too much dilated or contracted; and it will not be
easy to find any embarrassment in the complication of his clauses, any
inconsequence in his connections, or abruptness in his transitions. His
style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never subtilised by nice
disquisitions, decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by ambitious
sentences, or variegated by far-sought learning. He pays no court to the
passions; he excites neither surprise nor admiration: he always
understands himself, and his readers always understand him: the peruser
of Swift wants little previous knowledge; it will be sufficient that he
is acquainted with common words and common things; he is neither required
to mount elevations, nor to explore profundities; his passage is always
on a level, along solid ground, without asperities, without obstruction.
This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it was Swift’s desire to attain,
and for having attained he deserves praise. For purposes merely didactic,
when something is to be told that was not known before, it is the best
mode; but against that inattention by which known truths are suffered to
lie neglected, it makes no provision; it instructs, but does not
persuade.
By his political education he was associated with the Whigs; but he
deserted them when they deserted their principles, yet without running
into the contrary extreme; he continued throughout his life to retain the
disposition which he assigns to the “Church-of-England Man,” of thinking
commonly with the Whigs of the State, and with the Tories of the Church.
He was a Churchman, rationally zealous; he desired the prosperity, and
maintained the honour of the clergy; of the Dissenters he did not wish to
infringe the Toleration, but he opposed their encroachments. To his duty
as Dean he was very attentive. He managed the revenues of his church with
exact economy; and it is said by Delany, that more money was, under his
direction, laid out in repairs, than had ever been in the same time since
its first erection. Of his choir he was eminently careful; and though he
neither loved nor understood music, took care that all the singers were
well qualified, admitting none without the testimony of skilful judges.
In his church he restored the practice of weekly communion, and
distributed the sacramental elements in the most solemn and devout manner
with his own hand. He came to church every morning, preached commonly in
his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that it might not be
negligently performed. He read the service, “rather with a strong,
nervous voice, than in a graceful manner; his voice was sharp and
high-toned, rather than harmonious.” He entered upon the clerical state
with hope to excel in preaching; but complained that, from the time of
his political controversies, “he could only preach pamphlets.” This
censure of himself, if judgment be made from those sermons which have
been printed, was unreasonably severe.
The suspicions of his irreligion proceeded in a great measure from his
dread of hypocrisy; instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in
seeming worse than he was. He went in London to early prayers, lest he
should be seen at church; he read prayers to his servants every morning
with such dexterous secrecy, that Dr. Delany was six months in his house
before he knew it. He was not only careful to hide the good which he did,
but willingly incurred the suspicion of evil which he did not. He forgot
what himself had formerly asserted, that hypocrisy is less mischievous
than open impiety. Dr. Delany, with all his zeal for his honour, has
justly condemned this part of his character.
The person of Swift had not many recommendations. He had a kind of muddy
complexion, which, though he washed himself with Oriental scrupulosity,
did not look clear. He had a countenance sour and severe, which he seldom
softened by any appearance of gaiety. He stubbornly resisted any tendency
to laughter. To his domestics he was naturally rough: and a man of a
rigorous temper, with that vigilance of minute attention which his works
discover, must have been a master that few could bear. That he was
disposed to do his servants good, on important occasions, is no great
mitigation; benefaction can be but rare, and tyrannic peevishness is
perpetual. He did not spare the servants of others. Once, when he dined
alone with the Earl of Orrery, he said of one that waited in the room,
“That man has, since we sat to the table, committed fifteen faults.”
What the faults were, Lord Orrery, from whom I heard the story, had not
been attentive enough to discover. My number may perhaps not be exact.
In his economy he practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony, without
disguise or apology. The practice of saving being once necessary, became
habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last detestable. But his
avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never suffered to encroach
upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle:
and if the purpose to which he destined his little accumulations be
remembered, with his distribution of occasional charity, it will perhaps
appear that he only liked one mode of expense better than another, and
saved merely that he might have something to give. He did not grow rich
by injuring his successors, but left both Laracor and the Deanery more
valuable than he found them. With all this talk of his covetousness and
generosity, it should be remembered that he was never rich. The revenue
of his Deanery was not much more than seven hundred a year. His
beneficence was not graced with tenderness or civility; he relieved
without pity, and assisted without kindness; so that those who were fed
by him could hardly love him. He made a rule to himself to give but one
piece at a time, and therefore always stored his pocket with coins of
different value. Whatever he did he seemed willing to do in a manner
peculiar to himself, without sufficiently considering that singularity,
as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance
which justly provokes the hostility of ridicule; he, therefore, who
indulges peculiar habits, is worse than others, if he be not better.
Of his humour, a story told by Pope may afford a specimen.
“Dr. Swift has an odd, blunt way, that is mistaken by strangers for
ill nature.—’Tis so odd, that there’s no describing it but by facts.
I’ll tell you one that first comes into my head. One evening Gay and
I went to see him: you know how intimately we were all acquainted. On
our coming in, ‘Heyday, gentlemen’ (says the doctor), ‘what’s the
meaning of this visit? How came you to leave the great Lords that
you are so fond of, to come hither to see a poor Dean?’—‘Because we
would rather see you than any of them.’—‘Ay, anyone that did not know
so well as I do might believe you. But since you are come, I must get
some supper for you, I suppose.’—‘No, Doctor, we have supped
already.’—‘Supped already? that’s impossible! why, ’tis not eight
o’clock yet: that’s very strange; but if you had not supped, I must
have got something for you. Let me see, what should I have had? A
couple of lobsters; ay, that would have done very well; two
shillings—tarts, a shilling; but you will drink a glass of wine with
me, though you supped so much before your usual time only to spare my
pocket?’—‘No, we had rather talk with you than drink with you.’—‘But
if you had supped with me, as in all reason you ought to have done,
you must then have drunk with me. A bottle of wine, two shillings—two
and two is four, and one is five; just two-and-sixpence a-piece.
There, Pope, there’s half a crown for you, and there’s another for
you, sir; for I won’t save anything by you. I am determined.’—This
was all said and done with his usual seriousness on such occasions;
and, in spite of everything we could say to the contrary, he actually
obliged us to take the money.”
In the intercourse of familiar life, he indulged his disposition to
petulance and sarcasm, and thought himself injured if the licentiousness
of his raillery, the freedom of his censures, or the petulance of his
frolics was resented or repressed. He predominated over his companions
with very high ascendancy, and probably would bear none over whom he
could not predominate. To give him advice was, in the style of his friend
Delany, “to venture to speak to him.” This customary superiority soon
grew too delicate for truth; and Swift, with all his penetration, allowed
himself to be delighted with low flattery. On all common occasions, he
habitually affects a style of arrogance, and dictates rather than
persuades. This authoritative and magisterial language he expected to be
received as his peculiar mode of jocularity: but he apparently flattered
his own arrogance by an assumed imperiousness, in which he was ironical
only to the resentful, and to the submissive sufficiently serious. He
told stories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew
himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by the respectful silence
of a steady listener, and told the same tales too often. He did not,
however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was his rule, when he
had spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for any other speaker. Of
time, on all occasions, he was an exact computer, and knew the minutes
required to every common operation.
It may be justly supposed that there was in his conversation, what
appears so frequently in his Letters, an affectation of familiarity with
the great, an ambition of momentary equality sought and enjoyed by the
neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers
between one order of society and another. This transgression of
regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul. But
a great mind disdains to hold anything by courtesy, and therefore never
usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on
another’s dignity puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with
helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension.
Of Swift’s general habits of thinking, if his Letters can be supposed to
afford any evidence, he was not a man to be either loved or envied. He
seems to have wasted life in discontent, by the rage of neglected pride,
and the languishment of unsatisfied desire. He is querulous and
fastidious, arrogant and malignant; he scarcely speaks of himself but
with indignant lamentations, or of others but with insolent superiority
when he is gay, and with angry contempt when he is gloomy. From the
letters that passed between him and Pope it might be inferred that they,
with Arbuthnot and Gay, had engrossed all the understanding and virtue of
mankind; that their merits filled the world; or that there was no hope of
more. They show the age involved in darkness, and shade the picture with
sullen emulation.
When the Queen’s death drove him into Ireland, he might be allowed to
regret for a time the interception of his views, the extinction of his
hopes, and his ejection from gay scenes, important employment, and
splendid friendships; but when time had enabled reason to prevail over
vexation, the complaints, which at first were natural, became ridiculous
because they were useless. But querulousness was now grown habitual, and
he cried out when he probably had ceased to feel. His reiterated wailings
persuaded Bolingbroke that he was really willing to quit his deanery for
an English parish; and Bolingbroke procured an exchange, which was
rejected; and Swift still retained the pleasure of complaining.
The greatest difficulty that occurs, in analysing his character, is to
discover by what depravity of intellect he took delight in revolving
ideas, from which almost every other mind shrinks with disgust. The ideas
of pleasure, even when criminal, may solicit the imagination; but what
has disease, deformity, and filth, upon which the thoughts can be allured
to dwell? Delany is willing to think that Swift’s mind was not much
tainted with this gross corruption before his long visit to Pope. He does
not consider how he degrades his hero, by making him at fifty-nine the
pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence of an ascendant
mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver had described his Yahoos before the
visit; and he that had formed those images had nothing filthy to learn.
I have here given the character of Swift as he exhibits himself to my
perception; but now let another be heard who knew him better. Dr. Delany,
after long acquaintance, describes him to Lord Orrery in these terms:—
“My Lord, when you consider Swift’s singular, peculiar, and most
variegated vein of wit, always rightly intended, although not always
so rightly directed; delightful in many instances, and salutary even
where it is most offensive; when you consider his strict truth, his
fortitude in resisting oppression and arbitrary power; his fidelity
in friendship; his sincere love and zeal for religion; his
uprightness in making right resolutions, and his steadiness in
adhering to them; his care of his church, its choir, its economy, and
its income; his attention to all those who preached in his cathedral,
in order to their amendment in pronunciation and style; as also his
remarkable attention to the interest of his successors preferably to
his own present emoluments; his invincible patriotism, even to a
country which he did not love; his very various, well-devised,
well-judged, and extensive charities, throughout his life; and his
whole fortune (to say nothing of his wife’s) conveyed to the same
Christian purposes at his death; charities, from which he could enjoy
no honour, advantage, or satisfaction of any kind in this world: when
you consider his ironical and humorous, as well as his serious
schemes, for the promotion of true religion and virtue; his success
in soliciting for the First Fruits and Twentieths, to the unspeakable
benefit of the Established Church of Ireland; and his felicity (to
rate it no higher) in giving occasion to the building of fifty new
churches in London:
“All this considered, the character of his life will appear like that
of his writings; they will both bear to be reconsidered, and
re-examined with the utmost attention, and always discover new
beauties and excellences upon every examination.
“They will bear to be considered as the sun, in which the brightness
will hide the blemishes; and whenever petulant ignorance, pride,
malignity, or envy interposes to cloud or sully his fame, I take upon
me to pronounce, that the eclipse will not last long.
“To conclude—No man ever deserved better of his country, than Swift
did of his; a steady, persevering, inflexible friend; a wise, a
watchful, and a faithful counsellor, under many severe trials and
bitter persecutions, to the manifest hazard both of his liberty and
fortune.
“He lived a blessing, he died a benefactor, and his name will ever
live an honour to Ireland.”
In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the
critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always
light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness
and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The
diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There
seldom occurs a hard-laboured expression, or a redundant epithet; all his
verses exemplify his own definition of a good style; they consist of
“proper words in proper places.”
To divide this collection into classes, and show how some pieces are
gross, and some are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows
already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant,
who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.
It was said, in a Preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had
never been known to take a single thought from any writer, ancient or
modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be
found that has borrowed so little, or that, in all his excellences and
all his defects, has so well maintained his claim to be considered as
original.
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