firmities. This is all I dare at present beg from your Honour, under circumstances of life not worth your regard : what is left me to wish (next to the health and prosperity of your Honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your Honour's lady and sister."-Can prostration fall deeper? could a slave bow lower ?1

Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing the same man, says, "Dr. Swift came into the coffeehouse and had a bow from everybody but me. When I

1 "He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great man." -Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the DEAN.

"It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to himself."-Preface to Temple's Works.

On all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from the Journal to Stella :—

"I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d- ailed him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing I warned him of-never to appear cold to me, for 1 would not be treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my life already" (meaning Sir William Temple), &c. &c.-Journal to Stella.

"I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple because he might have been secretary of state at fifty; and here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment.”—Ibid.

"The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary of State."—Ibid. "Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite well. I was playing at one-and-thirty with him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence apiece to begin with: it put me in mind of Sir William Tem ple."-Ibid.

"I thought I saw Jack Temple [nephew to Sir William,] and his wife pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them, I am glad I have wholly shaken off that family."-S. to S., Sept. 1710.

came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 2007. per annum as member of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he 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, for which he would have them all subscribe; 'For,' says he, "he 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's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers."

This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these

1 "Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, "for a time, to have dictated the political opinions of the English nation,"

A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest sallies. “One, in particular, praised his 'Conduct of the Allies.'-JOHNSON : 'Sir, his 'Conduct of the Allies' is a performance of very little ability.

Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written the 'Conduct of the Allies!"-BosWELL'S Life of Johnson.

B

intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man-he was cautious about his money, but ready.-If you were in a strait, would you like such a benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word from Goldsmith, than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and dinner.' He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman—no Irishman ever gave but with a kind word and a kind heart.

It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but with such secresy, that the guests in his house were never in the least aware of the ceremony. There was no need surely why a church dignitary should assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was

1 "Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were well taken, and answered with good humour, he afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. For,' said he, 'I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked him, and told him 'he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a glass at any rate.' 'Why then,' said the Dean, 'you sha'n't, for I'll drink it myself. Why, take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my making the same speech to him, he said, he did not understand such usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him to me, that the fellow was a blockhead, and I had done with him."-SHERIDAN's Life of Swift.

afraid of heathen persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the author of the "Tale of a Tub" to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must have heard many an argument, and joined in many a conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's Burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other men's boards.

I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera,"-Gay, the wildest of the wits about town-it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised to take orders-to invest in a cassock and bandsjust as he advised him to husband his shillings and put his thousand pounds out at interest.' The Queen, and the

1 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL.

"DEAR SIR,

"Cashell, May 31st, 1735.

"I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the best colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me, they were born in such

bishops, and the world, were right in mistrusting the religion of that man.

1 am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, except in so far as they influence his literary character, his life, his humour. The most notorious sinners of all those fellow-mortals whom it is our business to discuss -Harry Fielding and Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief; they belaboured freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists a town of England or Ireland; were consecrated such a year; and, if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery, baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a genera. tion.

"I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health. Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage, where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at every ten or twelve miles end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans and pulls out the cork better, I think, then Robin. Here I design to meet you with a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, your most faithful and obedient servant,

"THEO. CASHELL."