luckily for them, both the food, and the manner of serving it up, gave Swift satisfaction, and put him into a good humour.

On settling at Laracor, Swift laudably repaired the church, which was left in a very miserable plight by his predecessor. He also formed the resolution of reading prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, of which due notice was given the Sunday before; but on the first of those days, when Swift entered the church, he found no one there but Roger Cox, the parish clerk. The rector, however, ascended the desk, and rising up very gravely, began-"Dearly beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me in sundry places, &c."

This circumstance comes down too well attested to be denied, and it shews that the levity of Swift's disposition was not to be restrained even in the most solemn services, and on occasions that required peculiar awe and reverence.

It is said, that at this time his ambition was to be esteemed the best preacher in the country, and that it was his wish that the sexton might sometimes be asked on a Sunday morning, "Does the doctor preach to-day." If Swift had not been cast into the vortex of politicks, it is not improbable, but that he might have figured away at the head of a sect.

About this time the celebrated Stella arrived in Ireland, and became his neighbour. Her name was Johnson, and her father was steward to Sir William

2H S

She

William Temple; she was a woman of great accomplishments, and of sterling merit. was married privately to Swift, by Dr. Ashe, bishop of Clogher, but never assumed his name; and when she requested, on her death-bed, that he would acknowledge her as his wife, he inhumanly quitted her in silence. She literally died of a broken heart, in 1727.

Before his connection with Stella, Swift paid his addresses to a Miss Waryng, whom he called Varina. His letters to this lady are written in the highest stile of romantic affectation, with vows of eternal fidelity; but after meeting with Stella, his attachment to Varina coolled, and she treated him as he deserved.

Some years after his promotion to the deanry of St. Patrick's, a merchant's daughter, of independent fortune, fell in love with, and followed him to Ireland. Her name was Van Homrigh, which be, in his epistles, altered to Vanessa. After sporting with the feelings of this lady a long time, he coolly told her that he was married; the intelligence threw her into a fit of despair, and after cancelling a will, which she had made in favour of Swift, she expired.

Whatever resolutions Swift might have formed at his first settling in Laracor, were soon broken. Ambition was the ruling passion of his soul, and this was not to be gratified by the applause of a score or two of families, and the reverence of the parish clerk and rusticks of his village.

Accordingly,

Accordingly, at the expiration of a year, he returned to London, then distracted by the contentions of opposite parties. This was a scene just suited to his disposition, and in 1701, he published a "Discourse on the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome," a performance of considerable ability, and well applied to the state of English politicks at that time.

When this tract came out, Swift carefully concealed his name, and was first betrayed to avow himself the author of it, in the course of a warm argument with an Irish prelate, who strenuously contended that it was written by Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, for whom Swift through life entertained the most sovereign contempt.

But by far the principal work of Swift, was his "Tale of a Tub," which he published anonymously; not, however, with so much secresy as to prevent its being ascribed openly to him. One reason for not putting his name to the book, was, no doubt, lest that it might hinder his advancement in the church, there being many passages in it seemingly calculated to turn religion itself into ridicule. Bishop Atterbury, in one of his letters, says "The author of the Tale of a Tub will not as yet be known, and if he be the man I guess, he hath reason to conceal himself, because of the profane strokes in that piece, which would do his reputation and interest in the world more harm, than his wit can do him good." Dr. Johnson had so high an opinion of this book, and so

low an one of Swift, that he could not bring himself to believe that he was the author of it.

In Boswell's entertaining work, the "Tour to the Hebrides," is the following account of a conversation, between Johnson and him, on this subject. "He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; and I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him, and he told me he had not. He said, today Swift is clear but shallow. In coarse humour, he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour, he is inferior to Addison; so he is inferior to his contemporaries, without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi."

Through life Swift would never own this book to be his, and when Faulknor, his printer, one day asked him, “if he really was the author of it?" he said, "Young man, I am surprised you dare ask me that question."

Swift attached himself closely to Lord Oxford, and supported his administration with great zeal, but received no other prefer ment than the deanry of St. Patrick, Dublin. This was in 1715, and immediately on the appointment he hastened over to take possession of his new dignity; but so little was his party esteemed on that side the water, that the very mob of Dublin pelted him

with stones as he walked the streets, on the supposition that he was a Jacobite. On the morning of his installation, the following copy of verses was affixed to the great door of the cathedral:

To day this temple gets a Dean,
Of parts and fame uncommon,
Us'd both to pray and to prophane,
To serve or God or Mammon.

When William reign'd, a whig he was,
When Pembroke-that's dispute, Sir:
In Oxford's time, what Oxford pleas'd,
Non-con, or Jack, or neuter.

This place he got by wit and rhyme,
And
many ways most odd;

And might a bishop be in time,

Did he believe in God.

Look down, St. Patrick, look, we pray,
On thine own church and steeple;
Convert thy Dean on this great day,
Or else God help the people.

And now, whene'er his Deanship dies,
Upon his stone be graven,

A man of God here buried lies,

Who never thought of Heaven!

A fortnight after his entrance upon the deanry, Swift, still more disgusted with his native land, hastened back to London, where he continued busied in politicks, and confederated with the greatest wits of the age during the remainder of Queen Anne's reign. He was in hopes of exchanging his Irish preferments for a correspon

dent