its economy, and its income; his attention to all those that 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 3; and his felicity (to rate it no higher) in giving occasion to the building of fifty new churches in London 4. 'All this considered, the character of his life will appear like that of his writings; they will both bear to be re-considered 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, malice, malignity, or envy interposes to cloud 'As soon as anyone got up into the pulpit he pulled out his pencil and a piece of paper, and carefully noted every wrong pronunciation or expression... Of these he never failed to admonish the preacher as soon as he came into the Chapter House.' Delany, p. 206. According to T. Sheridan, Stella 'bequeathed her fortune to charitable uses' in indignation at Swift's cruelty in not owning their marriage. Works, 1803, ii. 62; ante, SWIFT, 92. There are strong reasons for the belief that the will was written under Swift's advice. Craik, p. 547. He left his money for the foundation of 'an hospital for idiots and lunatics to be called St. Patrick's Hospital.' Works, i. 487; ante, SWIFT, 100 n. It was opened in 1757. Like the Bedlam of London it was formerly open to the public.' Works, i. 496. In other words the lunatics were made a show. See Boswell's Johnson, ii. 374. Till 1815 it was the only Lunatic Asylum in Ireland. There are at present in it (Aug. 1901), as I learn from Mr. R. R. Leeper, the Medical Superintendent, ninety-four patients, sixtyone of whom do not pay sufficiently to cover cost of maintenance. 'They are from the educated and professional classes, whose removal to the County Asylum would be a great hardship and injury to them. Such cases only are received as give hope of cure.' The Hospital stands in pleasant grounds of more than eight acres a noble memorial of its founder. Were its funds larger its benefits could be extended. 3 Ante, SWIFT, 36. In his Project for the Advancement of Religion (ante, SWIFT, 34) he pointed out that 'in London a single minister, with one or two sorry curates, has the care sometimes of above 20,000 souls incumbent on him.' Works, viii. 102. 'This paragraph,' writes Hawkesworth, 'is known to have given the first hint to certain Bishops to procure a fund for building fifty new churches in London.' Works (1803), iv. 172 n. or sully his fame, I will take upon me to pronounce that the eclipse will not last long. 'To conclude-no man ever deserved better of any 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 1. 'He lived a blessing, he died a benefactor, and his name will ever live an honour to Ireland 2.' IN the Poetical Works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon 139 which the critick can exercise his powers 3. 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 5. Works, xiv. 330. * Deane Swift, in drawing his character, says: 'He was chaste, sober, and temperate. I remember he once told me that he never had been drunk in his life. In his general behaviour he was open, free, disengaged, and cheerful; in his dealings with the world he was honest and sincere; in relieving the poor and the distressed he was liberal to profusion, if throwing upon the waters above a third part of his income will entitle him to the character of being generous. With regard to his faith he was truly orthodox. . . . Moreover he was exceedingly regular in all his duties to God.' Deane Swift, p. 372. 3 Adam Smith wrote in 1759:'Mr. Pope and Dr. Swift have each of them introduced a manner different from what was practised before into all works that are written in rhyme, the one in long verses, the other in short. The quaintness of Butler has given place to the plainness of Swift. The rambling freedom of Dryden and the correct but often tedious and prosaic language of Addison are no longer the objects of imitation, but all long verses are now written after the manner of the nervous precision of Mr. Pope.' Theory of Moral Sentiment, 1801, ii. 9. 'Swift perceived that there was a spirit of romance mixed with all the works of the poets who preceded him; or, in other words, that they had drawn nature on the most pleasing side. There still therefore was a place left for him who, careless of censure, should describe it just as it was with all its deformities; he therefore owes much of his fame, not so much to the greatness of his genius, as to the boldness of it.' GOLDSMITH, Works, iii. 432. This criticism suits Crabbe. 140 To divide this Collection into classes, and shew 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 often not to his judgement, but his humour 1. 141 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 2. order to place them, so as they may be best understood.' Works, viii. 199, 203. Ante, SWIFT, 114. The definition of a style in the present age would be 'pretty words in pretty places.' He wrote in 1732:-'I have been only a man of rhymes, and that upon trifles; never having written serious couplets in my life; yet never any without a moral view.' Works, xvii. 396. 'Nous avons des vers de lui d'une élégance et d'une naïveté dignes d'Horace.' VOLTAIRE, Œuvres, xlii. 431. 'I am not perhaps the only one who has derived an innocent amusement from the riddles, conundrums, trisyllable lines and the like of Swift and his correspondents in hours of languor.' COLERIDGE, Biog. Lit. i. 59. I am for every man's working upon his own materials, and producing only what he can find within himself, which is commonly a better stock than the owner knows it to be.' SWIFT, Works, ix. 186. 'To steal a hint was never known, But what he writ was all his own.' Ib. xiv. 329. The last line is from Denham's elegy on Cowley : 'To him no author was unknown, Yet what he wrote was all his own.' Ante, COWLEY, 172. For the dislike of Swift and Gay 'to write upon other folks' hints' see ante, GAY, 19 n. Swift says of himself in The Author's Apology:-'He insists upon it that through the whole book [The Tale of a Tub] he has not borrowed one single hint from any writer in the world.' Ib. x. 25. He read, no doubt, the letter to Mrs. Whiteway in which Dr. King mentioned 'that short character which Cardinal Polignac gave the Dean in speaking to me- Il a l'esprit créateur." Works, xix. 176. For the originality of Cowley and Milton see ante, COWLEY, 175; MILTON, 277. 'The greatest is he who has been oftenest aided; and if the attainments of all human minds could be traced to their real sources, it would be found out that the world had been laid most under contribution by the men of most original powers, and that every day of their existence deepened their debt to their race, while it enlarged their gifts to it.' RUSKIN, quoted in Holmes's Emerson, ed. 1885, p. 384. APPENDIX A (PAGE 1) 'In 1752 Dr. Hawkesworth, who was Johnson's warm admirer and a studious imitator of his style, and then lived in great intimacy with him, began The Adventurer.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 233. 'When he had become elated by having risen into some degree of consequence, he, in a conversation with me, had the provoking effrontery to say he was not sensible of it [the imitation].' Ib. p. 252. According to Malone 'he had no literature whatever.' By editing Cook's Voyages he made £6,000. Ib. ii. 247 n., v. 282 n.; Prior's Malone, p. 441. Miss Burney recorded of him in 1769-Papa calls his talking booklanguage for I never heard a man speak in a style which so much resembles writing.' Early Diary of F. Burney, i. 43. His Life of Swift, published in 1755, is founded on the fragment of Swift's Autobiography; Lord Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift, 1751; Dr. Delany's Observations upon Lord Orrery's Remarks, 1754; Deane Swift's Essay upon the Life, &c., of Dr. Swift, 1755. Of Orrery's Remarks Mrs. Delany wrote in 1751 (Auto. iii. 64):-'I fear there are too many truths in the book, but they do not become my Lord Orrery to publish them, who saw him in his most unguarded moments.' 'Lord Orrery,' writes G. Monck Berkeley in his Literary Relics, Preface, pp. xv-xvii, 'was the most assiduous of Swift's visitors, and the most servile of his flatterers. . . . Having one day gained admission to his library, he discovered a letter of his own, written several years before, lying still unopened, on which Swift had written, "This will keep cool."... Bishop Berkeley said of him :"My Lord Orrery would be a man of genius, if he knew how to set about it."' 'M'Leod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects of a man with whom he lived in intimacy. JOHNSON. Why no, Sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' Boswell's Johnson, v. 238. For Orrery's affectation see ib. Lady M. W. Montagu (Letters, iii. 16) described him as 'one of those danglers after wit who, like those after beauty, spend their time in humbly admiring it.' For Scott's criticism of him see Swift's Works, i. 415. See also ante, DORSET, 6. Of Delany's Observations T. Sheridan wrote in 1784, that 'while Orrery's book went through several editions, it, incomparably superior, still remains unsold.' Swift's Works, 1803, i. 73. Swift in 1733 described Delany as 'absolutely the most hopeful young gentleman I ever saw.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 198, 304. W. G. Carroll, in his Succession of Clergy in St. Bride's, Dublin, p. 47, says that Delany, in his Dedication of The Life of David to the Countess Granville and Lord Hertford, 'called on "all the host of heaven to say Amen to his prayer that Lord and Lady Hertford might increase and multiply." For Deane Swift's criticism of Delany and Hawkesworth see Nichols's Lit. Hist. v. 375. Thomas Sheridan's Life of Swift was published in the year of Johnson's death. 'He was paid more for it,' says Nichols, 'than Dr. Johnson received for The Lives,' Swift's Works, 1803, i. 76 n. APPENDIX B (PAGES 2, 11) Table of Swift's Residences in England :- Craik, p. 513. Ib. pp. 26, 27, 514. Ib. pp. 53, 77, 515. Ib. pp. 94, 96. there.' Ib. p. 516.) Ib. pp. 194, 264, 516. Ib. pp. 272, 516. Ib. pp. 370, 386. Ib. pp. 396, 398. In all he spent eighteen years in England, of which fourteen were between the ages of twenty-one and forty-six. On March 4, 1710-1, Swift wrote that he had warned his friends of the Duchess who 'was endeavouring to play the same game' against the Tory ministers 'that has been played' by Mrs. Masham against the Whigs. Works, ii. 189. 'Dec. 8, 1711. The Whigs are all in triumph . . . this is all your d-d Duchess of Somerset's doings.' Ib. p. 426. 'Dec. 23. I have written a Prophecy [The Windsor Prophecy], which I design to print.' Ib. p. 436. In it he grossly attacked her under the name of Carrots. She had red hair. Ib. xii. 286. This poem finally lost him his bishopric. 'Dec. 24. My prophecy is printed.' Ib. ii. 436. 'Dec. 26. Mrs. Masham desired me not to let the Prophecy be published, for fear of angering the Queen about the Duchess; so I writ to the printer to stop them. They have been given about, but not sold.' Ib. p. 438. 'April 13, 1713. Mr. Lewis [ante, GAY, 13] showed me an order for a warrant for three deaneries; but none of them to me... I told him I had nothing to do but go to Ireland immediately.' Ib. iii. 147. 'April 18. Lord Treasurer told me the Queen was at last resolved that I should be Dean of St. Patrick's.' Ib. p. 150. 'April 22. I am not sure of the Queen, my enemies being busy.' Ib. p. 151. 'April 25. I heard the warrants were gone over.' Ib. p. 153. 'April 26. I was at Court to-day, and a thousand people gave me joy.' Ib. p. 154. |